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BOOK    150.  13.R524    c.  1 

qiVERS    f   PSYCHOLOGY   AND   POLITICS 


3  T1S3  DDDDBbbS  i 


International  Library  of  Psychology 
Philosophy    and    Scientific    Method 


Psychology  and   Politics 


International  Library  of  Psychology 
Philosophy  and    Scientific    Method 

General  Editor:  C.  K.  Ogden,  m.a. 

{Magdalene  College,  Cambridge) 

Volumes  arranged: 

PHILOSOPHICAL  STUDIES 

by  G.  E.  Moore,  Litt.D. 
THE  MISUSE  OF  MIND 

by  Karin  Stephen.     Prefatory  Note  by  Henri  Bergsen 
CONFLICT  AND  DREAM 

byVJ.  H.  R.  Rivers,  F.R.S. 
THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   MYTHS 

by  G.  Elliot  Smith,  F.R.S. 
THE  ANALYSIS  OF  MATTER 

by  Bertrand  Russell,  F.R.S. 
TRACTATUS  LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS 

by  L.  Wittgenstein.     Introduction  by  Bertrand  Russell 
MATHEMATICS   FOR   PHILOSOPHERS 

by  G.  H.  Hardy,  F.R.S. 
THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE   UNCONSCIOUS 

by  E.  VON  Hartmann 
THE  ELEMENTS  OF   PSYCHOTHERAPY 

by  William  Brown,  M.D.,  D.Sc. 
THE  MEASUREMENT  OF  EMOTION 

by  W.  Whately  Smith.     Foreword  by   William  Brown 
PSYCHOLOGICAL  TYPES 

by  C.  G.  Jung,  M.D.,  LL.D. 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND   ETHNOLOGY 

by  W.  H.  R.  Rivers,  F.R.S. 
THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  MUSICAL  ESTHETICS 

by  W.  Pole,  F.R.S.     Edited  by  Edward  J.  Dent 
THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  MUSIC 

by  Edward  J.  Dent 
THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CHINESE  THOUGHT 

by  Liang  Che-Chiao 
THE  MEANING  OF  MEANING 

by  C.  K.  Ogden  and  I.  A.  Richards 
SCIENTIFIC  THOUGHT 

by  C.  D.  Broad,  Litt.D. 
THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF   'AS   IF' 

by  H.  Vaihinger 
THE  LAWS  OF  FEELING 

by  F.  Paulhan 
THE  HISTORY  OF  MATERIALISM 

by  F.  A.  Lange 
COLOU  R-H  ARMON  Y 

by  James  Wood 

THE  STATISTICAL  METHOD   IN  ECONOMICS  AND 
POLITICS 

by  P.  Sargant  Florence 
THE   PRINCIPLES  OF  CRITICISM 

by  1.  A.  Richards 
THE   PSYCHOLOGY  OF  REASONING 

by  EuGENio  Rignano 


'fTi^  cysi/u^i.iJ'?^. 


<^  \' 


Psychology  and  Politics 

And  other  Essays 


By 
W.  H.  R.  RIVERS 

M.D.,  D.Sc,  LL.D.,  F.R.S. 

With  a  Prefatory  Note  by 

G.  ELLIOT  SMITH,  F.R.S. 


And  an  Appreciation  by 

C.   S.   MYERS,   F.R.S. 


With  a  photogravure  portrait  of  the  Author 


i 


NEW   YORK 

HARCOURT,    BRACE   &  COMPANY,   INC. 

LONDON  :  KEGAN  PAUL,  TRENCH,  TRUBNER  &  CO.,  LTD. 

1923 


OTHER  WORKS  by  Dr  RIVERS 

Published  by  Kegan  Paul 

CONFLICT  AND  DREAM 

PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ETHNOLOGY 

THE   PRINCIPLES  OF  SOCIAL  ORGANISATION 

Published  by  The  Cambridge  University  Press 

HISTORY  OF  MELANESIAN  SOCIETY.    2  vols. 
INSTINCT  AND  THE  UNCONSCIOUS 

Published  by  Macmillan  &  Co. 
THE  TODAS 

Published  by  P.  S.  King  &  Son 

KINSHIP  AND  SOCIAL  ORGANISATION 

Published  by  Edward  Arnold 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  ALCOHOL  AND  OTHER 
DRUGS  ON  FATIGUE 


PRINTED   IN   GREAT   BRITAIN   BY 
THE   EDINBURGH   PRESS,    Q  AND    II   YOUNG  STREET,    EDINBURGH. 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

In  January  1922  Dr  Rivers  was  persuaded  to  accept 
the  invitation  to  become  a  candidate  for  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  University  of  London  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  In  his  letter  of  acceptance  he  wrote  : 
"  To  one  whose  Hfe  has  been  passed  in  scientific 
research  and  education  the  prospect  of  entering 
practical  politics  can  be  no  light  matter.  But  the 
times  are  so  ominous,  the  outlook  for  our  own 
country  and  the  world  so  black,  that  if  others  think 
I  can  be  of  service  in  political  life,  I  cannot  refuse." 
He  at  once  threw  himself  with  characteristic  zeal 
into  the  task  of  expounding  his  views  on  politics 
and  of  integrating  them  with  his  social  and  psycho- 
logical convictions,  for,  he  said,  "  I  cannot  believe 
that  political  problems  differ  from  those  of  every 
other  aspect  of  social  life  in  being  incapable  of 
solution  by  scientific  methods." 

This  belief  prompted  him  to  deliver  the  three 
lectures  on  psychological  theory  that  are  printed 
in  this  volume — surely  the  most  remarkable  form  of 
appeal  to  parliamentary  electors  in  the  history  of 
poUtics !  Before  his  sudden  death  in  June  1922 
he  had  carefully  revised  the  manuscript  in  a  way  that 
indicated  his  intention  to  have  these  lectures  pub- 
lished in  the  form  in  which  they  now  appear. 

Three  other  addresses  are  included  in  this  volume, 
one  on  Socialism  and  Human  Nature  given  to  the 
Critical   Society  less   than   a   fortnight   before  his 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   POLITICS 

death,  another  on  Education  and  Mental  Hygiene, 
upon  the  preparation  of  which  he  seems  to  have  been 
engaged  at  the  end,  and  a  lecture  on  the  Aims  of 
Ethnology.  During  his  last  three  years  Dr  Rivers 
dehvered  this  lecture  repeatedly  in  universities  and 
public  schools  and  to  a  variety  of  societies  of  different 
kinds  in  Great  Britain  and  America,  and  refrained 
from  pubhshing  it,  because  he  was  able  to  make  use  of 
it  whenever  he  was  invited  simply  to  give  a  lecture 
at  a  school,  a  university,  or  in  fact  any  kind  of 
gathering  of  people.  Although  its  connection  with 
poUtics  may  not  be  apparent,  it  is  included  in  this 
volume  because  Dr  Rivers  approached  the  problems 
of  pohtics  and  education  and  acquired  that  wider 
understanding  of  the  range  of  psychology  and 
sociology  by  way  of  ethnology  ;  and  during  the  last 
five  years  of  his  life  he  was  constantly  pleading  for 
the  closer  integration  of  ethnology  and  psychology. 
The  history  of  his  change  of  attitude  to  the  problems 
of  ethnology,  which  he  gives  in  the  last  chapter  of 
this  book,  had  a  direct  bearing  upon  his  views  on 
sociology,  education  and  politics.  For  the  clearer 
vision  of  the  nature  of  human  thought  and  action 
and  the  fuller  understanding  of  the  meaning  of 
civihsation  that  emerged  from  such  studies  forcibly 
impressed  upon  him  the  unity  of  culture  and  the 
close  interdependence  of  all  mankind,  and  laid  the 
foundations  of  his  appreciation  of  what  should  be 
the  ultimate  aim  of  all  government  and  political 
action.  These  addresses  are  printed  without  any 
alterations  other  than  mere  typographical  corrections. 

G.  ELLIOT  SMITH, 
vi 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  Psychology  and  Politics        .        .  i 

II.  Instinct  in  Relation  to  Society    .        27 

III.  The    Concept    of    the    Morbid    in 

Sociology 55 

IV.  An  Address  on  Socialism  and  Human 

Nature 81 

V.  An    Address    on    Education    and 

Mental  Hygiene  •         •         •        95 

VI.  An  Address  on  "  The  Aims  of  Ethno- 
logy"  107 

A  Note  on  "  The  Aims  of  Ethnology." 
By  G.  Elliot  Smith,  F.R.S.  .      139 

The  Influence  of  the  late  W.  H.  R. 
Rivers.  By  Charles  S.  Myers, 
C.B.E.,  M.D.,  Sc.D.,  F.R.S.  .       147 


vu 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND    POLITICS 


A 


PSYCHOI.OGY  AND   PONTICS 

I  AM  afraid  that  I  have  been  unduly  bold  in 
undertaking  the  task  of  speaking  about  the 
relation  between  psychology  and  politics. 
Probably  most  of  you  are  hoping  that  I  may 
be  able  to  utilise  such  psychological  know- 
ledge as  we  possess  to  point  the  way  towards  a 
solution  of  some  of  the  many  thorny  political 
problems  with  which  we  are  now  confronted. 
Though  it  is  possible  that  I  may  be  able  to  go 
some  little  way  in  this  direction,  I  wish  to 
begin  this  course  of  lectures  by  asking  you 
not  to  expect  too  much,  and  by  pointing  out 
some  of  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  fulfilling 
the  purpose  at  which  we  should  all  wish  to 
aim. 

The  first  point  on  which  to  insist  is  that  the 
science  of  psychology  is  still  very  young  ; 
in  so  far  as  concerns  the  kind  of  problem  with 
which  we  are  now  concerned,  it  can  hardly  be 
said  to  be  yet  in  its  teens.  We  all  recognise 
now  that  the  art  of  government  is  far  more 
than  a  matter  ruled  by  intellect,  and  yet  until 
quite  recently  the  psychologist  was  interested 

3 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

in  little  else.  Until  recently  he  paid  but 
scant  attention  to  the  affective  aspect  of 
mental  life,  to  the  instincts  with  which  this 
aspect  is  so  closely  linked,  and  to  the  vast 
store  of  experience  which  is  capable  of  in- 
fluencing our  thoughts  and  actions,  though 
it  is  not  readily,  or  may  be  even  only  with  the 
greatest  difficulty  accessible,  to  consciousness. 
These  realms  of  mental  experience  and  activity 
are  of  so  vague  and  indefinite  a  kind  as  com- 
pared with  intellectual  processes  that  their 
study  did  not  appeal  to  men  who  had  been 
trained,  as  nearly  all  psychologists  then  were, 
in  the  intellectual  exercises  of  logic  or  the 
subtle  distinctions  and  verbal  refinements  of 
metaphysics.  As  a  shocking  example  of  the 
neglect  of  the  less  intellectual  aspects  of 
psychology  I  am  able  to  quote  myself.  So 
recently  as  just  before  the  war,  less  than  ten 
years  ago,  I  was  one  of  those  concerned  in 
drawing  up  a  syllabus  for  an  examination  in 
psychology,  and  what  makes  the  matter 
worse,  for  an  examination  intended  for  those 
who  wished  to  specialise  in  psychological 
medicine.  When,  after  the  war,  we  had  to 
undertake  a  revision  of  this  syllabus,  I  dis- 
covered to  my  horror  that  the  heading  of 
instinct  had  not  been  included.  So  little 
did  instinct  occupy  our  thoughts  in  those  days 
that  we  had  neglected  the  subject  even  when 
prescribing  a  course  of  psychological  study 
in   a  case  where  its  importance  is  now  so 

4 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

obvious  that  it  seems  incredible  it  could  be 
omitted.  And  now  we  all  recognise  that  in 
many  other  departments  of  mental  activity 
the  instincts,  the  affective  states  associated 
with  them,  and  the  sentiments  of  which  they 
form  the  basis,  are  all  factors  of  the  greatest 
importance  in  the  determination  of  human 
behaviour,  and  especially  behaviour  of  that 
social  kind  of  which  political  behaviour  is 
only  a  special  branch.  At  the  present 
moment,  as  seems  always  to  happen  when 
experience  leads  people  to  correct  a  fault, 
the  pendulum  has  swung,  or  is  swinging,  too 
far  in  the  opposite  direction,  so  that  there  is 
now  a  tendency  to  underestimate  the  im- 
portance of  the  intellectual  factors  in  the 
determination  of  human  conduct.  It  is  only 
gradually  that  we  shall  come  to  see  just  how 
intelligence  and  the  intellectual  factor  take 
their  part  in  controlling  and  directing  the  more 
affective  elements,  and  how  the  ultimate 
factors  upon  which  sane  conduct,  whether  of 
individual  or  group,  depends  are  those  in 
which  the  basic  instinctive  elements  have  been 
modified  by  reason. 

In  this  state  of  uncertainty  in  which  a 
young,  almost  indeed  an  embryo,  science  finds 
itself,  one  should  be  chary  of  attempting  to 
apply  its  findings  practically.  There  is  now 
a  serious  danger  that  psychology  will  fall  into 
discredit,  partly  owing  to  the  zeal  of  its 
votaries   for   the   unconscious    and   infantile 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

aspects  of  the  mind,  but  still  more  owing  to 
premature  attempts  to  utilise  its  supposed 
discoveries  practically  while  the  basis  upon 
which  they  rest  is  uncertain  and  insecure.  It 
seems  to  me  almost  certain  that  there  will  be  a 
reaction  against  the  almost  universal  interest 
which  the  study  of  psychology  excites  to-day, 
and  that  we  are  approaching  a  period  when  it 
may  even  become  a  matter  of  ridicule  to  make 
those  references  to  psychological  explanation 
and  interpretation  which  now  arouse  such 
hopes  and  interest. 

Animated  as  I  am  by  these  apprehensions 
concerning  the  immediate  value — I  have  no 
doubts  whatever  concerning  the  ultimate  value 
— of  psychology  in  politics,  I  have  no  inten- 
tion of  adding  to  the  gravity  of  the  approach- 
ing reaction  by  too  ambitious  attempts  to 
show  how  psychological  doctrines  can  be 
immediately  applied  to  the  solution  of  political 
problems. 

In  these  lectures  I  shall  deal  in  the  main 
with  certain  general  principles  and  shall  state 
problems  rather  than  attempt  their  solution. 
Though  at  the  same  time  I  confess  to  the  belief 
that  if  it  is  possible  to  state  a  problem  clearly 
and  unequivocally,  one  has  already  gone  a 
long  way  towards  its  solution. 

In  beginning  the  consideration  of  my  subject 
after  this  preliminary  warning,  I  must  first 
stress  the  fact  that  in  applying  psychology  to 
the  field  of  politics,  we  shall  be  dealing  with 

6 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

social  or  collective  psychology  rather  than 
with  the  psychology  of  the  individual.  This 
at  once  raises  a  whole  group  of  problems, 
some  of  a  most  difficult  kind,  concerning  the 
relation  between  individual  and  collective 
psychology,  such  problems  as  the  concept 
of  a  collective  or  group  mind,  together  with 
the  question  how  far  society  can  be  regarded  as 
an  organism,  and  the  explanation  of  the  fact 
that  when  a  number  of  individuals  act  together, 
the  product  of  their  combined  activity  is  not 
the  same  as  that  which  would  have  emerged 
from  the  separate  activity  of  the  individuals, 
even  if  the  products  of  their  individual 
activity  were  synthesised  by  some  external 
agent.  With  some  of  these  matters  I  shall 
attempt  to  deal  in  the  course  of  these  lectures, 
and  I  now  propose  to  proceed  to  a  problem 
of  a  fundamental  kind  which  confronts  the 
psychologist  who  turns  from  the  study  of 
the  individual  to  that  of  the  group. 

In  a  paper  written  in  1914,  but  owing  to 
the  occurrence  of  the  war  not  published  until 
two  years  later,*  I  have  considered  the 
relation  between  psychology  and  sociology, 
putting  forward  the  position  that  our  chief 
avenue  to  the  formulation  of  an  adequate 
science  of  social  psychology  lies  in  the  observa- 
tion of  social  conduct,  including  under  this 
heading   not   merely   the   social   conduct   of 

*  "Sociology    and    Psychology,"    Sociological   Review,     1916, 
vol.  ix.  page  i. 

7 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

everyday  life,  but  still  more  those  forms  of  it 
which  are  subsumed  under  the  headings  of 
religion,  economics  and  politics,  as  well  as 
the  social  institution  of  language.  Though  I 
did  not  use  the  term  "  behaviourism,"  the 
point  of  view  put  forward  in  that  paper  was 
that  in  order  to  understand  the  real  springs  of 
social  conduct  we  have  to  adopt  the  attitude 
of  the  behaviourist.  I  put  forward  the  view 
that  the  social  behaviour  of  mankind  is 
capable  of  being  studied  as  a  methodo- 
logical principle,  independently  of  the  psycho- 
logical basis  of  that  behaviour,  forming  a 
discipline  which  might  be  called  "  pure 
sociology,"  and  that  such  a  discipline  would 
give  us  a  firm  basis  for  the  study  of  social 
psychology.  In  illustration  of  my  point  I 
took  the  relation  between  the  social  institution 
of  war  as  studied  comparatively  and  the 
emotion  of  revenge  which  had  been  especially 
emphasised  by  Professor  Westermarck.  In 
his  book  on  The  Origin  and  Development  of  the 
Moral  Ideas  *  this  writer  had  assumed  at  the 
outset  that  especially  that  form  of  warfare 
known  as  the  blood-feud  was  the  result  of 
the  activity  of  the  emotion  of  revenge,  and 
had  then  proceeded  to  cite  in  favour  of  this 
position  a  number  of  examples  of  warfare 
from  various  parts  of  the  world,  apparently 
believing  them  to  support  his  position  when, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  number  of  them  directly 

*  London,  1906,  vol.  i.  page  477. 

8 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

contradicted  it.  Thus,  to  take  only  one 
example,  Professor  Westermarck  cites  in 
favour  of  his  thesis  that  the  blood-feud  is 
determined  by  revenge  cases  in  which  the 
"  revenge  "  takes  the  form  of  adopting  the 
murderer  into  the  family  and  treating  him 
as  one  of  its  members.  Judging  from  his 
most  recent  work  *  Professor  Westermarck 
seems  to  be  unable  to  see  that  such  social 
behaviour  does  not  readily  fit  in  with  the 
dependence  of  the  blood-feud  on  revenge. 
If  we  start  from  behaviour  of  this  kind  we 
shall  be  driven  to  formulate  motives  more 
complicated  than  the  simple  emotion  of 
revenge  put  forward  by  Professor  Wester- 
marck. Even  if  revenge  remains  of  our 
chief  interest,  we  need  some  different  mode  of 
treatment  if  we  are  to  discover  how  far 
revenge  is  a  universal  character  of  the  human 
mind  ;  how  far,  if  universal,  it  has  developed, 
atrophied  and  been  modified  in  the  course  of 
human  history  ;  and  whether,  if  universal, 
it  is  an  emotion  which  has  the  same  content 
and  character  among  different  peoples  or 
varies  with  the  physical  and  social  environ- 
ment. These  questions  do  not  involve  idle 
academical  distinctions,  but  are  of  the  greatest 
possible  importance.  Thus,  if  it  could  be 
shown  that  revenge  is  not  a  universal  human 
character,  it  would  follow  that  it  is  not  in- 

*  The  History  of  Human  Marriage,  5th  edition,  1921,  vol.  i, 
page  9. 

9  B 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

stinctive,  or  if  instinctive,  that  it  is  either  the 
expression  of  an  instinct  only  recently  acquired 
or,  if  deeply  seated,  that  it  is  capable  of  being 
successfully  suppressed.  In  either  case  we 
should  be  in  a  far  more  hopeful  position  so 
far  as  the  eradication  of  war  is  concerned 
than  if  revenge  is  the  primary,  deeply  seated, 
universal  instinct  which  it  is  assumed  to  be  by 
Professor  Westermarck. 

In  the  further  course  of  the  paper  I  am 
considering,  I  showed  that  though  it  was 
theoretically  possible  to  have  a  science  of 
pure,  or  as  it  might  be  more  suitably  termed 
inductive,  sociology,  this  was  not  possible 
so  long  as  this  science  takes  its  terminology 
from  the  language  of  everyday  life  with  its 
inevitable  psychological  implications,  and  that 
the  two  lines  of  study  of  pure  sociology  and 
social  psychology,  or  of  inductive  and  de- 
ductive sociology,  should  go  on  side  by 
side,  and  that  the  student  should  recognise 
clearly  which  of  the  two  methods  he  is 
following. 

The  general  conclusion  to  which  I  was  led 
is  that  at  the  present  stage  of  our  inquiry,  and 
probably  for  a  long  time  to  come,  the  student 
of  pure  or  inductive  sociology  is,  and  will  be, 
able  to  do  far  more  for  a  science  of  social 
psychology,  than  at  present,  or  for  some  time, 
the  psychologist  can  do  for  a  science  of 
sociology.  The  observation  of  social  be- 
haviour must  for  long  be  our  chief  instrument 

10 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

towards    the    formulation    of    a    science    of 
collective  psychology. 

I  am  afraid  that  it  may  seem  a  somewhat 
depressing  introduction  to  a  course  of  lectures 
on  psychology  and  politics  to  begin  with  such 
a  statement  concerning  the  science  of  sociology 
which  includes  politics  in  its  scope.  The 
paper  to  which  I  have  referred  was  written 
eight  years  ago,  and  though  as  a  statement 
of  method  I  believe  that  it  still  holds  good, 
the  science  of  psychology  has  advanced  greatly 
in  the  interval,  or  perhaps  more  correctly, 
certain  psychological  doctrines  which  were 
then  little  known  have  now  become  the  sub- 
ject of  almost  universal  interest,  though  not, 
I  am  afraid,  of  universal  understanding. 
I  propose  in  this  course  to  consider  whether 
these  advances  in  knowledge  have  made  it 
more  possible  now  than  eight  years  ago 
to  apply  psychological  doctrines  directly  to 
the  solution  of  any  of  the  practical  problems 
of  politics. 

In  considering  the  relation  between  psycho- 
logy and  the  comprehensive  science  of  socio- 
logy of  which  the  study  of  politics  forms  part, 
I  have  taken  as  an  example  the  relation 
between  the  social  institution  of  warfare  and 
the  emotion  of  revenge.  I  propose  now  to 
give  some  examples  of  the  same  kind  of 
principle  which  come  more  definitely  into 
the  realm  of  political  science.  Before  doing 
so,   however,   I  may  refer  to  a  problem   of 

II 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

fundamental  importance  which  has  a  definite 
bearing  on  our  subject.  Our  existing  psycho- 
logical knowledge  is  derived  from  the  study 
of  the  individual ;  from  the  observation  or 
introspection  of  the  mental  processes  of 
the  more  or  less  normal  individual  in  the 
first  place,  and  in  the  second  place  by  the 
observation  from  without,  combined  in  favour- 
able cases  with  conclusions  gained  from 
introspection,  of  the  individual  under  abnor- 
mal conditions,  and  especially  when  afflicted 
by  disease,  and  during  the  development  of 
childhood.  A  great  deal  of  so-called  "  social 
psychology  "  consists  in  the  direct  application 
of  the  conclusions  of  this  psychology  of  the 
individual  to  collective  behaviour  on  the 
assumption,  tacit  or  avowed,  that  since  society 
consists  of  individuals,  what  is  true  of  the 
individual  must  necessarily  be  true  of  the 
group  of  individuals.  I  propose  to  consider 
this  problem  at  a  later  stage  and  only  mention 
it  now  as  another  reason  why  it  is  necessary 
to  study  social  behaviour  as  an  independent 
discipline,  for  I  believe  that  such  a  question 
as  that  I  have  just  put  is  not  going  to  be  an- 
swered on  a  priori  grounds,  but  that  a  satis- 
factory answer  will  only  be  reached  by  the 
study  of  evidence  in  which  the  behaviour 
of  the  individual  is  compared  with  the  be- 
haviour of  the  group.  For  the  moment  I 
must  be  content  to  mention  this  problem 
and  ask  you  to  bear  it  in  mind  while  you 

12 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

follow  me  in  a  brief  inquiry  into  the  relation 
between  motive  and  behaviour  in  certain 
departments  of  politics. 

I  will  take  as  my  first  example  the  institu- 
tion of  female  suffrage.  Among  the  mass  of 
conflicting  motives  which  prompted  the  long 
struggle  concerning  this  political  institution 
in  our  own  and  other  countries,  one  which 
was  absent  was  any  definite  body  of  knowledge 
worthy  of  being  called  scientific,  concerning 
the  existence  of  psychological  differences  be- 
tween men  and  women  in  respect  of  the 
capacity  to  govern.  Works  in  which  the 
psychological  character  of  the  two  sexes 
were  compared  dealt  largely  with  observations 
on  such  subjects  as  sense-acuity  and  speed  of 
reaction,  which  have  no  obvious  connection, 
probably  none  at  all,  with  the  far  more 
subtle  factors  which  come  into  play  in  the 
exercise  of  political  functions.  I  doubt 
whether  the  science  of  psychology  was  in 
a  position  to  make  a  contribution  of  any 
value  at  the  time  when  female  suffrage  was 
a  subject  of  political  conflict.  The  problem 
which  had  to  be  solved  was  determined  by 
factors  of  a  very  different  kind.  Apart 
from  the  application  of  such  political  prin- 
ciples as  that  which  regards  the  right  of  re- 
presentation as  a  necessary  result  of  taxation, 
the  issue  was  largely  determined  by  personal 
preferences  and  prejudices,  and  on  grounds 
of   political   expediency,    while   perhaps    the 

13 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

most  striking  fact  is  that  in  our  own  country 
the  final  and  peaceful  outcome  of  the  con- 
flict was  largely,  if  not  mainly,  determined 
by  a  purely  affective  state,  viz.  the  gratitude 
of  the  community  to  women  for  all  that 
they  had  done  during  the  war.  Moreover, 
while  women  were  deprived  of  political  func- 
tions there  was  no  possibility  of  any  real 
knowledge  of  their  qualification  for  the  art 
of  government,  except,  of  course,  in  so  far 
as  political  power  had  been  entrusted  to 
them  in  connection  with  other  bodies  than 
parliament  and  in  other  countries.  Whereas, 
after  women  have  exercised  political  func- 
tions, the  world  comes  into  possession,  or 
should  come  into  possession,  of  a  mass  of 
facts  which  make  scientific  study  possible. 
The  point  I  wish  to  make  is  that  the  observa- 
tion of  the  political  behaviour  of  women, 
and  of  the  differences,  if  there  be  such, 
between  their  political  behaviour  and  that 
of  men,  is  capable  of  supplying  us  with  a  mass 
of  facts  which  make  a  real  contribution  to 
our  knowledge  of  the  psychology  of  the  sexes  ; 
which  will  tell  us  whether  there  are  psycho- 
logical differences  and  the  nature  of  such 
differences,  if  they  exist,  between  men  and 
women.  One  kind  of  fact  of  which  I  am 
thinking  would  be  derived  from  a  study  of 
the  relative  proportions  of  men  and  women 
who  vote,  and  especially  of  any  differences 
in  this  respect  between  local  elections  where 

14 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

the  issues  are  readily  appreciated  as  com- 
pared with  parliamentary  elections  where  the 
issues  are  more  confused  and  intangible. 
Another  kind  of  fact  would  be  derived  from 
the  study  of  the  nature  of  legislation  before 
and  after  the  introduction  of  female  suffrage, 
especially  in  matters  of  education  and  hygiene. 
Especially  valuable  in  this  respect  would  be 
the  evidence  from  regions  so  like  one  another 
as  those  of  the  United  States  of  America 
at  the  time  when  only  some  of  these  states 
had  adopted  this  form  of  suffrage.  My 
point  is  that  the  observation  and  statistical 
study  of  political  behaviour  is  capable  of 
contributing  far  more  to  our  psychological 
knowledge  of  any  differences  between  the 
two  sexes  than  such  knowledge  otherwise 
gained  has  been  able  to  contribute  towards 
the  solution  of  the  political  problems  involved. 
Again,  it  will  only  be  through  the  utilisa- 
tion of  facts  of  this  kind  combined  with  other 
lines  of  evidence  that  we  can  expect  the 
solution  of  the  far  more  difficult  problem 
whether  if  differences  in  the  political  be- 
haviour of  men  and  women  are  shown  to 
exist,  they  are  inherent  in  the  nature  of  the 
two  sexes  or  are  determined  by  the  factors 
which  Graham  Wallas  has  summarised  so 
aptly  under  the  heading  of  social  heritage. 
The  point  on  which  I  wish  to  insist  is  that 
just  as  I  have  previously  held  that  it  is  only 
through  the  comparative  study  of  that  special 

15 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

kind  of  behaviour  we  call  warfare  that  we 
can  expect  to  understand  the  place  taken 
by  the  emotion  of  revenge  in  human  history, 
so  in  politics  it  is  only  through  the  study  of 
political  behaviour  that  we  can  hope  to  under- 
stand the  real  nature  of  the  psychological 
factors  which  enter  into  this  behaviour. 
Both  in  the  broader  field  of  comparative 
sociology  and  in  the  narrower  field  of  politics, 
knowledge  of  the  facts  of  social  and  political 
behaviour  can  make  a  far  greater  contri- 
bution to  our  psychology  than  any  psycho- 
logical knowledge  we  possess  at  present  can 
contribute  to  our  understanding  and  treatment 
of  social  and  political  problems. 

A  striking  example  of  the  thesis  I  am  putting 
forward  is,  in  my  opinion,  provided  by  the 
great  book  of  our  Chairman  on  Human  Nature 
in  Politics.  Throughout  that  book  the  author 
modestly  implies  that  he  is  engaged  in  apply- 
ing psychological  knowledge  to  the  elucidation 
of  political  behaviour.  I  venture  to  put 
forward  the  somewhat  different  view  that  the 
most  important  contribution  made  by  that 
book  is  that  it  gave  us  a  body  of  evidence 
collected  by  one  who,  while  taking  part  in 
political  life,  had  succeeded  in  keeping  alive 
the  capacity  for  dispassionate  observation ; 
that,  by  the  study  of  political  behaviour, 
recorded  in  Human  Nature  in  Politics  Graham 
Wallas  contributed  far  more  to  psychology 
than  he  was  helped  by  it.     It  is  true  that 

i6 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

through  other  lines  of  work  the  science  of 
psychology  was  moving  in  the  direction  along 
which  Graham  Wallas  was  led  by  his  political 
observations,  but  the  special  contribution 
of  that  book  was  its  demonstration  that  the 
factors  to  which  others  were  being  led  through 
the  study  of  morbid  states  of  the  individual 
are  also  active  in  the  collective  behaviour  of 
our  own  people  in  the  political  sphere. 

I  fear  that  what  I  have  said  in  introducing 
the  subject  of  the  relation  between  psychology 
and  politics  may  be  disappointing  to  those 
who  have  been  expecting  that  I  should  be 
able  to  point  clearly  to  the  value  of  psycho- 
logical knowledge  to  the  politician.  I  have 
deliberately  chosen,  however,  to  begin  in  this 
way  because  if  there  is  any  truth  in  what  I 
have  said  the  lesson  to  which  it  points  is 
clear.  The  psychologist  of  politics  cannot 
make  bricks  without  straw.  You  cannot 
expect  him  to  formulate  laws  concerning  the 
motives  of  political  behaviour  unless  he  has 
the  data  whereon  to  found  hypotheses  and 
the  facts  wherewith  to  test  those  hypotheses. 

If  there  is  any  truth  in  the  view  I  have 
put  before  you,  what  is  needed  if  we  are  to 
advance  in  knowledge  is  the  collection  of 
data  derived  from  the  observation  of  political 
behaviour,  using  the  terms  "  observation " 
and  "  behaviour "  in  a  very  wide  sense. 
These  data  fall  into  several  classes  of  which 
two  may  be  clearly  distinguished  from  one 

17  c 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

another.  One  class  of  facts  which  should  be 
available  for  the  use  of  the  psychologist  are 
the  records,  usually  more  or  less  statistical 
in  form,  which  are  already  collected  by  govern- 
ment departments  or  are  capable  of  such 
collection.  The  other  main  class  will  be 
derived  from  the  direct  observation  by  those 
trained  in  psychology  of  the  various  forms 
of  political  behaviour,  of  which  kind  of 
observation  I  have  already  cited  the  work  of 
Graham  Wallas  as  an  example.  In  consider- 
ing these  two  forms  of  observation  I  will 
begin  by  stating  my  conviction  not  only 
that  the  second  kind  of  observation  is  by 
far  the  more  important  of  the  two,  but  also 
that  it  is  the  more  immediately  necessary  and 
that  the  knowledge  derived  therefrom  is 
essential  to  the  successful  utilisation  of  statis- 
tical data.  The  social  psychologist  is  here 
confronted  with  a  problem  very  similar  to 
that  which  was  presented  thirty  years  ago 
to  the  individual  psychologist  when  he  was 
first  introduced  to  the  experimental  method. 
Carried  away  by  the  glamour  and  attractive- 
ness of  a  new  method,  many  believed  that  the 
problems  of  psychology  were  going  to  be 
solved  by  experimental  methods.  Advocates 
of  what  in  those  days  was  called  the  "  new 
psychology  "  firmly  believed  that  the  more 
they  refined  their  methods  and  measured 
by  the  thousandth  of  a  second,  and  the  more 
they   multiplied   the   observations   so   made 

i8 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

and  applied  to  them  the  most  elaborate 
statistical  methods,  the  sooner  they  would 
reach  the  psychological  millennium.  The 
hopes  thus  raised  have  been  rudely  dis- 
appointed, though  believers  still  linger 
here  and  there.  The  disillusionment  came 
because  the  advocates  of  these  new  methods 
did  not  appreciate  the  fact  that  we  need 
knowledge  derived  from  the  close  qualitative 
study  of  the  individual  mind,  and  from  the 
comparison  of  its  nature  under  such  varia- 
tion of  conditions  as  disease  provides,  before 
we  can  expect  to  be  able  to  utilise  such 
statistical  data  as  are  provided  by  the  very 
limited  forms  of  mental  activity  to  which 
the  experimental  method  is  capable  of 
application. 

It  is  very  necessary  that  the  social  psycho- 
logist should  now  avoid  the  similar  danger 
into  which  he  may  fall.  It  is  essential  that 
he  shall  recognise  that  he  will  not  be  in  a 
position  to  learn  much  from  the  psycho- 
logical interpretation  of  social  and  political 
statistics  until  he  has  prepared  the  field  by 
a  close  and  immediate  study  of  social  and 
political  behaviour.  I  propose  to  devote 
what  remains  of  this  lecture  to  a  brief  examina- 
tion of  two  examples  of  political  behaviour 
which  need  far  closer  study  than  they  have 
hitherto  received. 

One  of  these  is  the  behaviour  of  the  com- 
mittee which  is  so  prominent  in  the  mechanism 

19 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

of  government ;  the  other  is  the  behaviour 
associated  with  bureaucracy. 

The  committee  now  occupies  so  important 
a  position  in  our  system .  of  government ; 
it  is  an  instrument  so  obviously  capable 
of  being  turned  to  good  or  evil  purpose 
according  to  the  way  it  is  conducted,  that  it 
needs  definite  study  of  a  kind  which,  so  far 
as  I  know,  has  never  been  attempted.  At 
the  same  time  it  is  a  study  from  which  a 
successful  issue  can  hardly  be  expected  except 
on  the  basis  of  psychological  knowledge  and 
by  the  application  of  psychological  method. 

Committees  are  of  many  kinds  and  work 
with  very  different  degrees  of  success.  One 
important  distinction  which  could  be  made  is 
according  to  the  nature  of  their  functions, 
and  especially  whether  they  are  advisory  or 
have  executive  functions.  My  own  impres- 
sion, it  is  nothing  more  than  an  impression, 
is  that  the  committees  of  the  former  kind, 
with  which  I  am  acquainted,  are  a  success 
and  those  of  the  latter  kind  often  a  failure. 
It  is  evident  that  a  form  of  grouping  which  is 
adapted  to  one  kind  of  social  or  political 
function  need  not,  and  probably  will  not,  be 
suitable  for  another,  and  the  two  kinds  of 
function  which  differ  from  one  another  so 
greatly  as  those  denoted  by  the  terms  "  advi- 
sory "  and  "  executive  "  would  probably  need 
instruments  of  different  kinds.  Committees 
might  also  be  classed  according  to  the  nature 

30 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

of  their  mode  of  working  and  of  their  results. 
We  probably  all  know  the  committee  which 
does  little  more  than  support  and  register 
the  decisions  of  one  of  its  members,  in  which 
the  result  may  be  better  or  worse  than  that 
which  would  be  reached  by  its  members 
acting  individually,  according  as  the  master 
mind  is  superior  or  inferior  to  the  rest.  Leav- 
ing this  frequent  case  on  one  side,  it  will 
probably  be  widely  recognised  that  some  com- 
mittees reach  conclusions  definitely  superior 
to  those  which  would  be  reached  by  their 
individual  members,  while  other  committees 
may  produce  results  altogether  on  a  lower 
level  than  the  decisions  of  their  constituent 
members  if  acting  as  individuals.  Certain 
factors  to  which  such  differences  may  be  due 
are  fairly  obvious.  The  former  result  is  the 
more  likely  to  be  reached  the  more  the 
individual  members  are  able  to  contribute 
special  knowledge,  and  are  ready  to  put  this 
knowledge  in  the  possession  of  others.  The 
latter  result  is  the  more  likely  when  the 
members  of  the  committee  have  not  the 
adequate  knowledge  or,  if  they  have  it,  have 
not  the  courage,  the  enterprise,  sometimes 
perhaps  the  honesty,  to  put  it  forward,  but 
allow  the  opinion  of  the  more  vocal  members 
to  carry  the  day.  Here  again  I  should  like 
to  register  the  impression  that  there  is  a 
tendency  for  this  mode  of  classification  of 
committees    to    coincide    with    that    which 

21 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

distinguishes  committees  according  to  their 
advisory  or  executive  functions,  the  advisory- 
committee  tending  to  produce  a  result  superior 
to  that  which  would  be  reached  by  its  indivi- 
dual members,  while  the  committee  of  the 
executive  class  is  one  in  which  the  result 
often  tends  to  be  of  a  kind  one  has  to  regard 
as  inferior  to  that  of  the  individual  members. 
I  only  put  forward  this  suggestion  in  the  most 
tentative  manner,  for  I  believe  that  the  whole 
subject  needs  an  exhaustive  examination, 
through  the  results  of  which  I  believe  it 
would  be  possible  to  reach  conclusions  which 
would  make  the  committee  an  institution 
of  greater  value  to  the  community,  or  at  least 
reduce  the  magnitude  of  certain  unsatis- 
factory aspects  of  this  mode  of  government 
which  cannot  altogether  be  abolished. 

The  other  subject  to  which  I  should  like 
to  refer  briefly,  though  here  again  only  by 
way  of  illustration  of  the  kind  of  way  in  which 
psychology  may  be  useful  to  politics,  is  one 
connected  with  what  is  usually  called  bureau- 
cracy, a  subject  perhaps  of  as  great  and  as 
immediate  political  importance  as  any  other 
which  can  be  named.  There  is  no  question 
that  the  greatest  obstacle  to  the  manage- 
ment of  production,  distribution  and  con- 
sumption in  the  interest  of  the  community 
is  the  general  dread  of  certain  evils  which 
have  become  closely  connected  in  public 
opinion    with    government  control,   a  dread 

22 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

which  has  been  greatly  accentuated  by  the 
experience  of  nearly  everyone  who  had  to 
do  with  government  departments,  at  any 
rate  with  certain  government  departments, 
during  the  war.  One  of  the  most  important 
problems  with  which  our  society  is  confronted 
is  to  discover  how  to  administer  and  manage 
enterprises  of  various  kinds  without  the  evils 
which  are  summed  up  under  the  name  bureau- 
cracy. There  can  be  little  question  that  we 
have  here  a  subject  in  which  psychology 
can  be  of  service.  Here  again  we  need  an 
exhaustive  study  of  the  factors  which  enter 
into  management,  among  which,  of  course, 
the  subject  with  which  I  have  just  dealt, 
the  committee,  will  rank  as  one  of  the  most 
important.  This  is  not  the  place,  even  had 
I  the  necessary  knowledge,  to  enter  upon  the 
full  consideration  of  this  subject,  but  as  an 
illustration  of  the  kind  of  problem  with  which 
the  investigating  psychologist  would  have  to 
deal  I  may  mention  the  highly  important 
and  widespread  social  institution  known  as 
"  red  tape."  It  is  obvious  that  in  the  conduct 
of  any  extensive  business  one  cannot  trust 
to  the  unregulated  individual  judgment  of 
everyone  concerned  in  management,  but  that 
there  have  to  be  definite  rules  of  procedure. 
The  state  or  process  which  is  known  as  "  red 
tape  "  is  one  in  which  these  rules  are  unduly 
complex  and  unduly  rigid,  and  have  become 
masters  instead  of  servants.     Here  again  I 

23 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

shall  make  no  attempt  to  deal  with  the 
subject  fully,  but  shall  be  content  to  throw 
out  a  suggestion  concerning  one  kind  of 
psychological  process  which  acts  as  a  factor 
in  the  misuse  of  a  necessary  procedure. 

Modern  psychology  is  largely  concerned 
with  the  mechanisms  by  which  certain  mental 
products,  and  especially  those  products  we 
regard  as  morbid,  come  into  being.  Among 
the  many  processes  or  mechanisms  it  has 
distinguished  is  one  which  is  called  the 
defence-mechanism.  A  good  example  of  this 
process  is  the  exaggerated  confidence,  often 
amounting  to  bluster  and  swagger,  which  is 
adopted  by  those  who,  under  the  surface, 
have  a  definite  sense  of  inferiority.  I  think 
that  most  educated  people  now  recognise 
that  many  examples  of  exaggerated  social 
behaviour  only  cover  an  attitude  of  self- 
distrust  and  doubt.  The  psychologist  classes 
this  mode  of  behaviour,  with  many  others 
of  different  kinds,  as  due  to  the  action  of 
a  defence-mechanism  in  which  the  bluster- 
ing or  swaggering  attitude  is  adopted,  not 
of  set  purpose,  but  more  or  less  unwittingly, 
as  a  defence  against  the  impleasant  state 
of  mind  which  would  be  present  if  the  in- 
feriority were  explicitly  recognised.  I  should 
like  to  suggest  that  one  of  the  factors  which 
enters  into  the  production  of  "  red  tape " 
is  the  activity  of  a  defence-mechanism ; 
that  it  is  a  protection  adopted  in  a  more 

24 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

or  less,  usually  more  rather  than  less,  un- 
witting manner  by  those  who  find  themselves 
confronted  with  administrative  problems  to 
which  their  powers  are  not  adequate.  My 
own  experience  of  individual  experts  in  the 
use  of  "  red  tape  "  certainly  points  in  this 
direction,  while  it  is  significant  that  it  flour- 
ishes Itixuriantly  in  such  departments  as  the 
War  Office,  where  men  who  enter  upon  the 
career  of  arms  because  they  have  the  quali- 
fications for  fighting  and  adventure  find  that 
their  essential  task  is  the  management  of  a 
vast  organisation  in  which  the  qualities  especi- 
ally needed  are  very  different  from  those 
which  led  them  to  adopt  the  army  as  a  career. 
I  must  be  content  to  throw  out  this  suggestion 
as  to  one  of  the  lines  which  may  serve  as  a 
guide  in  the  psychological  investigation  of  an 
attitude  which  must  be  understood  if  we 
are  to  correct  the  evils  now  associated  with 
government  control. 

I  must  be  content  with  these  examples  of 
the  kind  of  way  in  which  psychology  may  be 
able  to  help  towards  the  solution  of  certain 
practical  problems,  but  I  should  like  to  insist 
again  that  these  must  only  be  regarded  as 
examples  of  the  kind  of  problem  to  which 
psychological  methods  and  principles  may  be 
applied.  As  a  beginner  in  the  study  of 
politics  it  is  not  my  place  to  attempt  the 
practical  application  of  psychology  to  such 
problems.     I  believe  that  any  qualifications 

25  D 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

I  may  have  for  dealing  with  the  subject  of 
this  course  of  lectures  will  be  better  employed 
if  I  deal  with  some  of  the  fundamental 
problems  of  social  psychology,  and  in  the 
next  lecture  I  propose  to  take  as  my  subject 
the  importance  of  instinct  in  the  study  of 
the  sociological  problems  of  which  political 
problems  form  so  important  a  part. 


26 


INSTINCT    IN   RELATION  TO   SOCIETY 


II 

INSTINCT  IN  REI.ATION  TO  SOCIETY 

For  the  purpose  of  this  lecture  I  propose  to 
define  instinct  very  briefly  as  "  inherited 
disposition  to  behaviour."  In  so  far  as  the 
behaviour  of  a  human  being  is  determined 
by  dispositions  which  he  has  brought  into 
the  world  with  him  as  part  of  his  psychical 
and  mental  make-up,  so  far  shall  I  regard 
this  behaviour  as  instinctive,  and  in  so  far 
as  it  is  determined  by  his  experience  in 
relation  to  his  environment,  so  far  shall  I 
regard  the  behaviour  as  otherwise  deter- 
mined, or  non-instinctive. 

The  usual  contrast  made  is  between  in- 
stinctive and  intelligent  behaviour,  but  I 
have  made  no  reference  to  intelligence  in  the 
preceding  definition  because  I  do  not  want  to 
commit  myself  to  the  position  that  instinctive 
and  intelligent  behaviour  are  mutually  ex- 
clusive. It  seems  possible,  if  not  probable, 
that  we  shall  find  ourselves  sooner  or  later 
driven  to  the  position  that  intelligent  be- 
haviour, or,  to  use  a  more  abstract  term, 
intelligence,    may,    in    some    cases    at    any 

29 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

rate,  be  determined  by  inheritance,  in  which 
case  we  should  have  to  classify  instincts 
into  intelligent  and  non-intelligent.  It  seems 
to  me  far  more  likely,  however,  that  we  shall 
not  follow  this  course,  but  shall  be  driven  to 
give  up  the  whole  attempt  to  distinguish 
between  instinct  and  intelligence  and  shall 
adopt  a  new  classification  with  a  new  nomen- 
clature. In  my  book  on  Instinct  and  the 
Unconscious  I  have  made  a  beginning  in 
this  direction,  and  have  distinguished  be- 
tween protopathic  and  epicritic  instincts  or 
forms  of  instinctive  behaviour,  making  the 
presence  or  absence  of  discrimination  and 
gradation  the  distinguishing  marks  of  the 
two.  I  am  not  absolutely  wedded  to  these 
terms,  which  have  been  taken  from  the 
physiology  of  sensation,  and  am  quite  pre- 
pared to  accept  other  terms  or  even  other 
distinctions,  if  better  can  be  found.  The 
important  point  which  has  not  yet,  I  think, 
been  adequately  realised  by  the  critics  of 
that  book  is  that  this  new  classification 
and  nomenclature  form  only  a  first  attempt 
to  find  a  new  principle  of  classification  of 
mental  states  which  involves  giving  up  the 
old  attempt  to  distinguish  between  instinct 
and  intelligence.  In  the  simple  definition 
which  I  adopt  for  the  purpose  of  this  lecture, 
I  make  no  attempt  to  define  instinct  by  means 
of  psychological  characters  as  discovered  by 
introspection.     The    definition   turns   wholly 

30 


INSTINCT  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIETY 

on  the  words  "  inherited  "  and  "  behaviour  " 
and  may  be  regarded  as  frankly  biological  in 
character. 

Two  points  follow  from  this  definition. 
One  of  these  which  is  now,  I  think,  clearly 
recognised  by  nearly  all  writers,  if  not  by 
all  writers  on  instinct,  is  that,  whatever  may 
be  the  case  in  such  animals  as  insects,  purely 
instinctive  behaviour  is  almost  unknown  in 
the  case  of  the  higher  animals,  and  especially 
in  man.  There  is  much  reason  to  believe  that 
it  is  only  on  the  first  occasion  on  which  an 
example  of  innate  behaviour  occurs  that  it 
can  be  regarded  as  purely  instinctive,  and 
that  directly  this  behaviour  is  modified  by 
experience,  even  by  the  experience  derived 
from  the  first  performance,  it  is  no  longer 
purely  instinctive.  It  might  seem  that  such  a 
view  as  this  might  lead  us  to  reject  the  concept 
of  instinct  when  dealing  with  man,  and 
it  may  be  that  we  may  eventually  be  driven 
to  adopt  this  course,  but  there  is  so  much 
reason  to  believe  that  different  forms  of 
human  behaviour  depend  in  varying  degrees 
on  innate  dispositions  that  we  cannot  ignore 
the  factor  of  heredity.  We  cannot  put  on 
one  side  the  fact  that  such  forms  of  behaviour 
as  flight  from  danger,  or  that  actuated  by 
the  sexual  impulse,  belong  to  a  category 
vastly  different  from  the  highly  specialised  and 
discriminative  behaviour  which  has  just  led 
me  to  choose  the  word  "  impulse  "   in  the 

31 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

earlier  part  of  this  sentence,  or  that  which 
each  one  of  you  is  exemplifying  when  you 
come  and  listen  to  a  lecture  on  psychology 
instead  of  going  to  a  theatre  or  enjoying  the 
comfort  of  your  own  homes.  We  are  now 
inclined  to  believe  that  if  such  highly  complex 
examples  of  behaviour  as  those  I  have  just 
instanced  were  fully  analysed  we  should 
come  upon  factors  of  the  innate  order  which 
would  therefore  be  included  in  our  definition 
of  instinct.  But  there  is  a  vast  difference 
between  the  crude  and  universal  modes  of 
behaviour  connected  with  self-preservation 
and  sex,  and  the  highly  specialised,  indi- 
vidual, and  exceptional  behaviour  of  the 
kind  I  have  exemplified  by  the  choice  of  a 
word  or  the  mode  of  spending  an  evening. 

In  what  I  have  just  said  I  have  used  a 
word  which  implies  an  important  distinction 
which  is  often  made  between  instinctive 
and  non-instinctive  behaviour.  I  have  spoken 
of  behaviour  connected  with  self-preservation 
and  sex  as  universal,  and  I  wish  now  to  con- 
sider how  far  universality  can  be  taken  as  a 
distinguishing  feature  of  instinct.  In  the 
case  of  the  lower  animals  the  statement 
that  an  instinct  is  of  universal  occurrence 
among  all  the  members  of  the  species  may  be 
taken  as  practically  true,  though  exceptions 
or  perversions  certainly  occur,  and  it  is  cus- 
tomary to  apply  the  same  distinction  to 
the  instincts  of  man.     We  can  have  no  doubt 

32 


INSTINCT   IN   RELATION  TO  SOCIETY 

that  certain  forms  of  behaviour  for  which  we 
possess  inherited  dispositions,  such  as  suck- 
ling, repulsion  by  the  painful,  and  the  primary 
impulses  connected  with  sex  are  thus  universal, 
though  this  universality  may  only  be  true 
of  certain  epochs  of  life,  while,  owing  to  the 
enormous  extent  to  which  the  instincts  of 
man  are  capable  of  modification,  it  may  be 
obscured  by  the  great  variety  of  form  which, 
through  such  modification,  behaviour  prim- 
arily instinctive  may  come  to  take.  There 
are  other  cases  in  which  the  behaviour  of 
different  individuals  or  of  different  societies 
varies  so  greatly  that  it  may  not  be  easy  to 
find  any  common  feature  which  can  be  re- 
garded as  universal.  But  it  is  a  question 
whether  in  many  of  these  cases  the  univer- 
sality has  only  been  disguised  by  the  high 
degree  of  modification  of  which  human  in- 
stincts are  capable.  Thus,  observation  of 
the  behaviour  of  different  members  of  our 
own  community  might  lead  us  to  doubt 
whether  the  disposition  to  flee  from  danger, 
with  its  accompanying  affect  of  fear,  is 
universal,  and  if  we  confine  our  attention  to 
the  healthy  adult,  we  might  well  doubt 
whether  this  form  of  behaviour,  generally 
assumed  to  be  instinctive,  is  universal  even 
in  our  own  society,  but  the  observation  of 
the  behaviour  of  the  child  and  of  the  adult 
when  affected  by  disease,  or  even  of  the 
normal  adult  when  exposed  to  exceptionally 

33  E 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

dangerous  situations,  provides  conclusive  evi- 
dence that  this  instinctive  behaviour  is  uni- 
versal and  that  the  universality  is  only- 
disguised  by  such  processes  as  suppression 
and  sublimination.  Consequently,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  give  up  universality  within  the 
species  as  a  distinguishing  mark  of  instinct 
in  man. 

There  is,  however,  another  possibility  which 
may  make  it  necessary  to  modify  the  current 
view  that  every  member  of  a  species  exhibits 
the  working  of  the  instincts  of  that  species. 
Not  long  ago  it  was  generally  assumed  that 
hereditary  characters  only  come  into  being 
through  the  agency  of  natural  selection, 
and  this  view  involves  the  consequence  that 
instincts  must  be  universal  in  the  species. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  acquired  characters 
can  be  transmitted,  it  becomes  possible  that 
the  highly  diverse  varieties  of  mankind  may 
have  acquired  different  instincts.  Largely 
owing  to  the  discovery  of  the  agencies  called 
hormones,  by  which  the  activity  of  one  part 
of  the  body  influences  others  independently 
of  the  nervous  system,  the  whole  problem 
of  the  inheritance  of  acquired  characters 
has  again  been  brought  into  the  field  of 
possibility.  If  observation  and  experiment 
should  prove  the  existence  of  this  mode  of 
heredity,  it  will  open  the  field  to  the  existence 
of  instincts  which  are  not  universal  to  mankind 
but  are  confined  to  certain  peoples  or  societies. 

34 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION  TO   SOCIETY 

Moreover,  this  course  of  events  will  have 
as  a  consequence  the  situation  that  human 
instincts  may  vary  from  one  another  greatly 
in  their  degree  of  fixity,  their  inevitableness, 
and  their  modifiability.  We  should  expect 
that  such  instincts  as  those  of  self-preserva- 
tion and  sex,  which  must  go  back  very 
far  in  phylogenetic  development,  should  be 
relatively  fixed  or  capable  only  of  modifica- 
tion through  such  deeply  seated  processes 
as  suppression,  while  instinctive  behaviour 
recently  acquired  would  be  capable  of  far 
more  easy  inhibition,  or  even  of  complete 
replacement  by  behaviour  of  a  different 
kind.  The  different  degrees  of  plasticity 
of  instinct  which  would  follow  from  the 
inheritance  of  acquired  characters  would  have 
other  consequences  which  would  open  many 
new  problems. 

It  may  perhaps  surprise  you  that  in  a 
lecture  on  the  relation  between  psychology 
and  politics  I  am  finding  it  necessary  to 
wander  into  the  field  opened  by  the  mere 
possibility  of  the  occurrence  of  the  inheritance 
of  acquired  characters,  and  at  this  point  I 
may  consider  briefly  just  what  makes  this  topic 
so  important.  I  may  illustrate  by  a  problem 
which  I  have  already  considered  briefly  else- 
where.* 

The  comparative  study  of  different  human 
societies  shows  the  presence  of  very  striking 

*  See  Instinct  and  the  Unconscious,  2nd  edition,  1922,  page  260. 

35 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

differences  in  relation  to  the  attitude  towards 
property.  Some  societies,  of  which  our  own 
is  an  example,  have  so  strong  a  leaning 
towards  individual  ownership  that  their 
members  often  believe  as  an  article  of  faith 
that  common  ownership  is  contrary  to  human 
nature,  while  other  societies  are  so  wedded 
to  common  ownership  that  they  find  it 
equally  difficult  to  understand  our  indivi- 
dualism and  may  find  it  even  as  grotesque 
and  ridiculous  as  many  of  the  customs  of 
savage  peoples  appear  to  us. 

As  an  example  I  may  cite  an  experience 
of  my  own  which  any  of  you  who  heard  me 
read  a  paper  last  year  at  the  Anthropological 
Club  of  this  University  will  already  know. 
When  I  was  travelling  in  1908  on  a  vessel 
with  four  Polynesian  natives  of  Nine  or 
Savage  Island,  and  took  the  opportunity 
of  inquiring  into  their  social  organisation, 
they  retaliated  in  a  manner  I  am  always 
glad  to  encourage  by  asking  me  about  the 
social  customs  of  my  own  country.  Using 
my  own  concrete  method,  one  of  the  first 
questions  was  directed  to  discover  what  I 
should  do  with  a  sovereign  if  I  was  fortunate 
enough  to  earn  one.  In  response  to  my 
somewhat  lame  answers,  they  asked  me  the 
definitely  leading  question  whether  I  should 
share  it  with  my  parents,  brothers  and  sisters. 
When  I  replied  that  I  might  do  so  if  I  liked, 
but  that  it  was  not  the  usual  custom,  they 

36 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION  TO   SOCIETY 

found  my  reply  so  ridiculous  that  it  was 
long  before  they  left  off  laughing.  It  was 
quite  clear  from  their  ejaculations  that  their 
amusement  was  altogether  due  to  the  incon- 
gruity with  their  own  attitude  of  my  conduct 
with  regard  to  my  earnings.  Their  attitude 
towards  my  individualism  was  of  just  the 
same  kind  as  that  which  we  experience 
when  we  hear  of  such  a  custom  as  the  couvade 
or  of  many  examples  of  sympathetic  magic, 
and  revealed  the  presence  of  a  communistic 
sentiment  of  a  deeply  seated  kind. 

When,  as  among  ourselves  at  the  present 
moment,  the  student  of  politics  is  confronted 
with  problems  which  largely  depend  on  the 
nature  of  the  attitude  towards  individual 
and  common  ownership,  or  towards  individual 
and  common  management  of  property,  the 
strength,  and  still  more  the  permanence, 
of  the  sentiments  upon  which  this  attitude 
rests  become  of  great  importance.  If  we 
exclude  the  inheritance  of  acquired  characters 
from  the  field,  two  chief  possibilities  remain 
as  a  means  of  explaining  the  different  attitude 
towards  property  shown  by  the  Polynesians 
and  ourselves.  One  of  these  is  that  the 
attitude  towards  property  has  no  instinctive 
basis,  but  is  purely  a  matter  of  what  Graham 
Wallas  has  called  "  social  heritage  "  ;  the 
other,  that  if  there  is  an  instinct  underlying 
individual  ownership,  it  is  capable  of  being 
suppressed     or     sublimated    through    other 

37 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

agencies,  of  which  presumably  one  of  the 
most  important  is  the  gregarious  instinct ; 
or  it  may  be  the  case  that  this  suppression 
or  sublimation  is  capable  of  being  brought 
about  through  the  agency  of  the  traditional 
sentiments  which  make  up  so  large  a  part 
of  our  social  heritage.  In  either  case  there 
is  no  reason  why  one  kind  of  attitude  towards 
ownership  should  not  be  speedily  converted 
into  the  other,  and  in  the  first  case  even  in 
one  generation.  There  is  no  reason  why  the 
Polynesian  or  the  Melanesian  should  not 
speedily  become  a  firm  adherent  of  indi- 
vidual ownership,  and  equally  no  reason 
why  we  should  not  just  as  speedily  acquire 
a  sentiment  in  favour  of  common  ownership. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  inheritance  of 
acquired  characters  should  make  it  possible 
that  there  have  come  into  being  instinctive 
attitudes  towards  property  widely  different 
from  one  another,  we  must  expect  that  it 
will  take  longer  to  modify  existing  sentiments 
and  that  the  reformer  will  have  to  trust 
far  more  to  the  agencies  of  suppression  and 
sublimation. 

In  the  preceding  discussion  of  the  univer- 
sality and  plasticity  of  instinct  in  its  relation 
to  politics,  I  have  mentioned  the  gregarious 
instinct  as  one  of  the  agencies  by  means 
of  which  an  instinct  prompting  individual 
acquisition  may  have  been  inhibited  and 
controlled.     I  propose  to  devote  the  greater 

38 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION  TO   SOCIETY 

part  of  this  lecture  to  the  consideration  of 
this  instinct,  or  group  of  instincts,  now  widely 
and  popularly  known  as  the  herd-instinct. 

In  recent  psychological  literature  we  read 
far  more  about  the  activity  and  effects  of 
the  herd-instinct  than  about  what  this  instinct 
is.  Singularly  few  attempts  have  been  made 
to  justify  the  instinctive  character  of  the 
processes  by  which  the  social  group  influ- 
ences the  individual,  to  distinguish  between 
those  elements  which  are  instinctive  and  those 
which  form  part  of  the  social  heritage.  The 
whole  matter  requires  a  prolonged  and  de- 
tailed study  based  upon  evidence  from  many 
different  fields  ;  from  the  comparative  study 
of  different  human  societies  ;  from  the  obser- 
vation of  the  behaviour  of  the  child  ;  from 
the  study  of  disorders  of  the  mental  life  due 
in  the  main  to  conflicts  between  individual 
tendencies  and  social  or  gregarious  factors  ; 
from  that  wider  study  in  which  human 
behaviour  is  regarded  biologically  in  its  rela- 
tion to  that  of  other  animals  ;  while  still 
another  line  of  approach  is  to  be  found  in 
the  comparison  of  the  behaviour  of  solitary 
and  gregarious  animals  whether  in  a  state  of 
nature  or  under  domestication,  bearing  in 
mind  that  when  an  animal  is  domesticated 
by  man  it  becomes  in  a  way  a  member  of 
human  society  acting  upon  its  members 
just  as  it  is  acted  on  by  them. 

Although  little  has  yet  been  done  towards 
39 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

the  distinction  of  the  instinctive  from  the 
non-instinctive  elements  of  the  complex  in- 
fluence which  the  group  exerts  upon  the  indi- 
vidual, several  attempts  have  been  made  to 
classify  the  processes  included  under  the  term 
"herd-instinct."  Thus  Trotter*  has  distin- 
guished between  offensive  and  defensive  gre- 
gariousness,  and  he  and  many  others  have 
recognised  the  different  nature  of  gregarious- 
ness  in  such  animals  as  the  wolf,  the  sheep 
and  the  bee.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  however, 
no  writer  has  clearly  distinguished  between 
two  varieties  of  gregariousness,  the  distinction 
and  study  of  which  are  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance, especially  in  relation  to  the  instinc- 
tive aspect  of  man's  social  behaviour. 

Two  main  varieties  of  gregarious  group 
can  be  distinguished  both  in  the  lower  animals 
and  in  man.  In  one  the  group  has  no  definite 
leader.  In  the  other  there  is  not  only  such  a 
leader,  but  the  attitude  towards  him  becomes 
a  most  important  factor  in  the  maintenance 
of  social  cohesion. 

In  many  animal  groups  we  can  be  confident 
that  there  is  no  one  individual  distinguished 
from  the  rest  either  by  superior  powers  or 
superior  equipment  and  the  unity  which 
characterises  the  behaviour  of  animal  societies 
so  composed  must  depend  on  some  property 
by  which  each  member  of  the  group  acts 
upon,   or   is   capable   of   acting   upon   every 

*  Instincts  of  the  Herd  in  Peace  and  War,  1920,  page  28. 
40 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION  TO  SOCIETY 

other  member  of  the  group  with  the  high 
degree  of  uniformity  necessary  to  ensure  the 
harmony  of  this  behaviour.  In  so  far  as 
the  behaviour  of  such  a  society  is  instinctive 
it  provides  the  simplest  case  of  herd-instinct, 
and  the  process  upon  which  the  unity  and 
harmony  of  action  depend  provides  the  proto- 
type of  the  "  suggestion "  which  I  have 
used  *  as  the  term  for  the  comprehensive 
process  by  means  of  which  all  the  members 
of  a  group  act  with  harmony  towards  some 
common  end. 

In  another  kind  of  group,  which  we  must 
regard  as  more  complex,  behaviour  is,  or 
may  be,  of  a  character  in  which  some  one 
member  of  the  herd  takes  a  more  prominent 
position  than  the  rest.  When  this  prominent 
position  is  always,  or  for  prolonged  periods, 
occupied  by  the  same  individual,  we  have  a 
definite  example  of  the  second  variety  of 
gregariousness  in  which  the  group  has  a 
definite  leader.  It  is  probable  that  there 
are  many  intermediate  varieties  in  which 
any  member  of  the  group  is  capable  of  acting 
as  leader,  chances  of  time  and  space  deter- 
mining which  member  shall  be  the  leader 
at  any  given  moment.  How  far  this  occa- 
sional leadership  makes  necessary  differentia- 
tion within  the  group  will  depend  on  the  nature 
of  the  functions  connected  with  the  position 

*  Instinct  and  the  Unconscious,  Cambridge  University  Press, 
2nd  edition,  1922,  page  91. 

41  F 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

of  especial  prominence,  and  we  need  far 
more  extensive  and  exact  observation  of 
the  behaviour  of  gregarious  animals  than  we 
possess  at  present  to  allow  any  definite 
statements  under  this  head. 

When  there  is  a  definite  leader,  it  is  evident 
that  the  conditions  determining  the  behaviour 
of  the  group  will  be  vastly  different  from 
those  of  the  leaderless  group.  In  addition  to 
the  process  of  suggestion  taking  place  in  an 
equal  degree  and  in  a  similar  manner  between 
every  member  of  the  group,  or  being  at 
least  capable  of  taking  place  between  every 
member  of  the  group,  there  is  now  a  specialised 
form  of  the  process  between  one  member 
of  the  group  and  all  its  other  individual 
members. 

The  process  by  which  in  this  case  the  har- 
mony of  the  group  is  ensured  must  be  so 
different  from  that  which  is  in  action  when 
there  is  no  leader  that  the  two  forms  of  group 
and  corresponding  unifying  processes  must 
be  clearly  distinguished  from  one  another 
and  should  receive  different  designations. 
The  process  by  which  the  leader  influences 
the  group,  and  is  doubtless  influenced  by 
its  other  members,  may  be  regarded  as  the 
prototype  of  the  process  known  as  prestige- 
suggestion,  the  process  which  is  so  prominent 
in  the  suggestion  of  hypnotism,  of  the  medical 
consulting-room,  and  of  political  leadership. 

Before  I  pass  on  to  consider  how  far  these 
42 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION  TO  SOCIETY 

two  main  varieties  of  the  herd-instinct  are 
represented  in  man  and  the  part  which  it 
may  be  possible  to  assign  to  them  in  connection 
with  politics,  I  must  point  out  a  most  im- 
portant distinction  between  them,  one  which 
involves  factors  of  the  utmost  importance 
from  the  psychological  point  of  view. 

So  long  as  the  herd  is  leaderless  and  its 
harmony  dependent  on  the  reciprocal  influence 
which  every  member  of  the  group  exerts 
indiscriminately  on  every  other  member,  there 
will  be  no  need  for  that  discrimination  of 
the  features  by  which  one  member  of  the  herd 
differs,  from  another,  nor  for  any  individual 
graduation  of  action  apart  from  any  dis- 
crimination or  graduation  of  which  the  activity 
of  the  herd  as  a  whole  is  capable.  There 
will  be  a  tendency  to  behaviour  of  the  all-or- 
none  kind  such  as  is  exemplified  in  panic, 
or  less  completely  in  the  apparently  blind 
mimesis  *  which  leads  every  member  of  a 
flock  of  sheep  to  follow  the  example  set  by 
any  one  of  its  members.  The  behaviour 
of  the  whole  group  will  be,  or  tend  to  be, 
unwitting.  There  will  be  no  opening  for 
such  differentiation  of  individual  behaviour 
such  as  we  must  suppose  to  be  connected  with 
witting  as  distinguished  from  unwitting  be- 
haviour. 

The  greater  variety  of  the  conditions  of 
the  group  with  a  leader  not  only  makes  it 

*  Instinct  and  the  Unconscious,  page  92. 

43 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

more  complex,  but  introduces  the  necessity 
of  more  complex  behaviour.  While  each 
member  maintains  the  relations  with  the 
rest  of  the  group,  which  are  necessary  to 
ensure  harmony  of  behaviour,  there  will 
now  be  added  the  attitude  of  each  member 
towards  the  leader.  It  seems  clear  that  a 
leader  would  be  of  little  advantage  to  the 
group  if  the  attitude  towards  him  were  not 
combined  with  those  relations  between  the 
members  of  the  group  in  general  as  were 
necessary  to  ensure  the  harmony  of  its 
action  when  there  was  no  leader.  If,  for 
the  present,  we  continue  to  call  the  general 
process  by  which  the  harmony  of  the  leaderless 
herd  is  maintained  "  suggestion,"  and  the 
process  through  which  the  leader  exerts 
his  influence  "  faith,"  the  situation  which  I 
have  just  outlined  in  the  case  of  the  herd 
with  a  leader  would  involve  the  activity 
of  both  suggestion  and  faith  while  the  har- 
mony of  the  leaderless  herd  would  require 
only  the  activity  of  the  process  of  suggestion. 
The  point,  however,  on  which  I  desire  now 
to  lay  stress  is  that  the  process  of  faith 
will  be  of  a  far  more  witting  kind  than  the 
suggestion  of  the  leaderless  herd,  involving 
as  it  does  not  only  the  discrimination  of 
the  leader  from  the  rest  of  the  herd,  but  also 
the  discrimination  of  the  nature  of  his  be- 
haviour with  its  corresponding  graduation 
of  conduct,  though  the  greater  the  degree  of 

44 


INSTINCT   IN   RELATION  TO   SOCIETY 

organisation  of  the  leadership,  the  less  witting 
would  the  discrimination  and  graduation 
become. 

At  this  stage  it  will  be  convenient  to  stay 
for  a  moment  to  consider  a  problem  of  nomen- 
clature. If  the  foregoing  sketch  is  valid,  it 
will  be  necessary  to  distinguish  very  definitely 
between  the  nature  of  the  processes  of  the 
herd  with  and  without  a  leader.  I  have 
elsewhere  *  analysed  the  general  process  of 
suggestion,  and  have  distinguished  sympathy, 
mimesis,  and  intuition  as  its  component 
elements  according  as  we  are  concerned 
with  the  affective,  conative  or  cognitive 
aspects  of  the  process.  It  is  clear  that  a 
similar  analysis  should  be  carried  out  in 
the  case  of  the  process  of  the  group  with  a 
leader. 

Beginning  with  the  affective  aspect  it  is 
clear  that  something  more  is  involved  in  the 
attitude  towards  the  leader  than  sympathy, 
and  that  there  is,  at  least,  the  root  of  the 
process  we  call  reverence.  In  the  attitude 
of  each  member  of  a  herd  towards  its  leader 
I  see  as  its  essential  element  the  process 
which  gives  to  reverence  its  distinguishing 
character. 

On  the  conative  side  again  it  is  clear 
that  we  have  something  more  than  the 
blind  mimesis  of  the  leaderless  group.  The 
members  of  the  group  do  not  merely  imitate 

*  Instinct  and  the  Unconscious,  page  90. 

45 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

the  motions  of  the  leader,  but  in  all  but  the 
simplest  cases  their  ways  of  reacting  to  his 
gestures  are  more  varied  and  complex.  The 
attitude  of  activity  towards  the  leader  has 
in  it  as  its  essential  element  the  factor  which 
is  also  at  the  root  of  obedience,  and  for  the 
present  I  should  like  to  propose  obedience 
as  a  term  for  the  conative  aspect  of  the 
process  by  which  the  behaviour  of  the  members 
of  the  group  towards  the  leader  is  regulated. 
They  do  not  imitate  but  they  obey. 

Here,  as  in  the  case  of  the  processes  of 
the  leaderless  group,  it  is  in  connection  with 
the  cognitive  aspect  of  the  process  that  the 
chief  difficulty  in  nomenclature  arises.  It  is 
clear  that  in  the  group  with  a  leader  there  will 
be  something  more  than  the  unwitting  in- 
tuition by  which  each  member  of  the  group 
responds  to  the  activity  of  every  other 
member.  As,  in  my  opinion,  we  have  here 
the  root  of  the  process  of  cognition  (and, 
as  I  believe,  the  process  to  be  essentially 
that  which  we  understand  by  cognition), 
I  shall  be  content  for  the  present  to  use 
this  term,  and  when  it  is  necessary  I  should 
speak  of  the  cognitive  aspect  of  the  attitude 
towards  the  leader.  The  important  point 
to  recognise  now  is  that  in  the  attitude 
towards  the  leader  of  the  group  we  have  the 
germ,  if  not  the  essence,  of  the  processes 
we  call  faith,  reverence  and  obedience,  and 
that  these  processes  are  not  present  in  the 

46 


INSTINCT   IN   RELATION   TO   SOCIETY 

more  unwitting  behaviour  of  the  leaderless 
group. 

I  cannot  stay  here  to  develop  further 
these  differences  between  the  behaviour  and 
processes  which  characterise  the  activity  of 
the  group  with  and  without  a  leader,  but 
must  pass  on  to  consider,  it  can  be  only 
briefly,  how  far  we  can  distinguish  the  presence 
of  these  two  varieties  of  group-behaviour 
in  man  and  how  far  the  study  of  early  forms 
of  the  social  group  helps  us  to  understand  the 
nature  of  the  social  activity  of  man.  I  have 
considered  elsewhere  *  certain  lines  of  evi- 
dence which  point  to  the  existence  in  man  of 
behaviour  characterised  by  an  unwitting  activ- 
ity of  the  processes  of  the  sympathy,  mimesis 
and  intuition  which  I  regard  as  the  distin- 
guishing marks  of  the  behaviour  of  the 
leaderless  herd,  and  I  propose  to-day  to  confine 
my  attention  to  the  nature  of  the  attitude 
towards  the  leader  of  a  human  group. 

In  discussing  how  far  it  is  possible  to  get 
back  to  the  roots  of  the  attitude  of  the  human 
group  towards  its  leader,  it  is  of  the  first 
importance  to  know  what  was  the  nature  of 
the  social  group  among  the  progenitors  of 
man.  As  you  are  probably  aware,  we  here 
strike  upon  one  of  the  most  disputed  and 
disputable  problems  of  anthropology.  Accord- 
ing to  one  view  the  earliest  human  group 
corresponded   closely   with   that   formed   by 

*  Instinct  and  the  Unconscious,  page  94. 

47 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

the  modern  family ;  according  to  another 
it  resembled  rather  the  clan  of  many  existing 
simple  societies  with  a  far-reaching  system  of 
communism  among  its  members  ;  while  accord- 
ing to  a  third  point  of  view  the  earliest  human 
group  differed  from  any  at  present  in  existence 
in  being  composed  of  a  sire  with  many  wives, 
for  the  mastery  of  whom  the  sons  strove 
when  the  sire  died  or  became  unable  to  main- 
tain his  exclusive  rights  over  the  women  of 
the  group.  I  have  no  intention  of  attempting 
any  survey  of  the  anthropological  evidence 
for  or  against  these  different  views.  I  must 
be  content  to  say  that  in  my  opinion  this 
evidence  points  to  the  communistic  clan  as 
a  group  which  was  not  the  original  unit  of 
human  society  but  one  which  only  came 
into  existence  under  certain  conditions,  and 
especially  the  development  of  agriculture, 
which  enabled  men  to  live  in  larger  groups 
than  that  formed  by  the  family.  Perhaps 
it  has  not  even  been  universal  among  mankind. 
There  is  much  reason  to  believe  that  the  early 
form  of  human  grouping  was  small.  At  a 
time  when  men  lived  by  the  collection  of 
berries,  nuts,  roots,  grubs  and  small  game, 
they  could  hardly  have  existed  except  under 
conditions  where  a  territory  of  considerable 
size  was  necessary  to  satisfy  the  appetite 
of  each  individual  and  a  group  of  considerable 
size  would  have  been  impossible.  At  the 
present  time  the  Australian  aboriginal  forms 

48 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION    TO    SOCIETY 

our  best  example  of  a  people  in  the  collecting 
stage,  and  it  is  said  that  in  some  parts  of 
Australia  a  man  may  have  to  travel  forty 
miles  a  day  to  get  his  daily  food.  Under 
such  circumstances,  or  even  in  more  luxuriant 
countries,  the  existence  of  a  large  human 
group  would  be  impossible,  and  we  may  con- 
clude with  some  certainty  that  the  early 
human  group  consisted  of  little  more  than 
parents  and  children  forming  a  family  group 
either  of  the  modern  form  or  of  the  polygynous 
kind,  the  natureofwhichlhavebriefiy  indicated. 
If  the  early  human  group  was  of  this  kind 
the  leader  was  also  the  father,  and  if  there  is 
in  mankind  an  instinctive  attitude  towards 
the  leader  it  will  have  been  complicated  in 
its  development  by  the  inclusion  of  elements 
arising  out  of  the  attitude  towards  the  father. 
Moreover,  if  the  early  group  was  of  the  polygy- 
nous kind,  with  a  monopoly  of  all  the  women  of 
the  group  by  the  leader,  there  will  have  been 
introduced  into  the  attitude  towards  the  man 
who  was  both  father  and  leader  the  element  of 
jealousy,  or  even  hatred,  which  the  experience 
of  the  psycho-analyst  leads  him  to  look  upon 
as  a  feature  of  the  infantile  attitude  to- 
wards the  father.  We  are  here  brought  up 
against  the  important  problem  of  modern 
psychology,  usually  connected  with  the  term 
"  CE^dipus  complex,"  but  with  the  important 
element,  not  usually  taken  into  account,  that 
the  special  features  of  the  attitude  towards 

49  G 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

the  father  may  not  arise  so  much  out  of  the 
actual  relations  of  the  modern  family,  but  may 
be  of  an  instinctive  kind  going  back  to  features 
of  an  early  form  of  social  grouping. 

I  have  led  you  to  this  topic  with  its  highly 
disputable  character  because  I  believe  that 
it  furnishes  a  good  example  of  the  general 
principle  to  which  I  devoted  the  last  lecture. 
It  is  unlikely  that  we  shall  ever  obtain  any 
direct  evidence  concerning  the  exact  nature 
of  the  earliest  form  of  human  social  grouping, 
while  it  is  probable  that,  at  any  rate  for 
a  long  time  to  come,  it  will  be  very  difficult 
to  estimate  at  its  proper  value  the  evidence 
reached  by  psycho-anal3^ic  inquiry.  Neither 
anthropology  nor  psychology  is  likely  to 
make  conclusive  contributions  towards  our 
understanding  of  the  nature  of  leadership  in 
the  modern  forms  of  social  grouping.  Just  as 
we  need  close  psychological  study  of  such 
forms  of  social  grouping  as  the  Committee 
and  the  Government  Department,  so  do  we 
need  a  similar  study  of  the  attitude  towards 
the  modern  social  or  political  leader.  Such 
a  study  is  necessary  if  we  are  to  find  an  answer 
to  the  many  questions  suggested  by  the  nature 
of  leadership  in  the  modern  state. 

I  propose  now  to  proceed  on  the  lines  of 
my  first  lecture  and  consider  briefly  one  or 
two  examples  of  the  questions  which  thus 
need  an  answer,  not  with  the  intention  of 
attempting  such   an   answer,   but   rather  to 

50 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION   TO  SOCIETY 

state  the  kind  of  problem  to  the  solution  of 
which  I  hope  some  day  psychology  may  be 
able  to  contribute.  One  of  these  problems 
concerns  the  nature  of  the  process  by  which 
ideas  influence  human  progress.  One  of  the 
chief  conclusions  to  which  modern  psychology 
is  leading  is  that  human  behaviour  is  much 
less  influenced  by  ideas  than  was  formerly 
supposed,  but  responds  rather  to  appeals 
made  in  the  symbolic  manner  by  which  the 
subconscious  or  unconscious  levels  of  the 
mind  seem  to  be  so  greatly  influenced.  This 
kind  of  mechanism  seems  to  leave  but  little 
scope  for  the  motive  power  which  has  hitherto 
been  universally  ascribed  to  the  great  ideas 
of  the  world's  history,  to  such  ideas  as  under- 
lay, or  seem  to  have  underlain,  the  Reforma- 
tion and  the  rebellion  against  the  autocracy 
of  the  Stuarts,  or  such  ideas  as  the  "  Peace 
with  Honour "  or  "  Peace,  Retrenchment 
and  Reform "  of  the  two  great  political 
parties  of  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century. 
The  problem  which  I  wish  to  raise  concerns 
the  part  taken  in  the  efficacy  of  these  ideas 
by  the  personalities  with  whom  they  were 
associated.  What  was  the  part  taken  in 
the  success  of  the  ideas  which  seemed  to 
actuate  the  Reformation  by  such  personalities 
as  that  of  Luther  ;  of  the  ideas  of  our  own 
revolution  by  Hampden  and  Cromwell ;  of 
"  Peace  with  Honour "  by  the  personality 
of    Beaconsfield,    of    "  Peace,    Retrenchment 

51 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

and  Reform  "  by  Gladstone,  and  of  the  idea 
of  "  Tariff  Reform  "  by  Chamberlain  ?  The 
ease  with  which  forms  of  words  which  once 
had  a  real  meaning  continue  to  be  used  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  they  have  degenerated 
into  shibboleths  and  catchwords  suggests 
an  interesting  psychological  problem  in  which 
the  process  of  symbolism  certainly  takes  its 
part.  It  suggests  that  while  the  ideas  are 
really  active  there  is  something  more  behind 
them  than  an  appeal  to  intelligence,  and 
that  they  owe  much  of  their  efhcacy  to  the 
power  of  personality,  possibly  to  the  instinc- 
tive desire  of  the  human  group  to  have  a 
leader  to  whom  it  can  look  for  guidance  in 
the  same  unwitting  manner  with  which  the 
members  of  a  herd  of  animals  regard  their 
leader.  The  intervention  of  a  long  period  in 
our  own  history  in  which  the  place  of  the 
leader  has  been  taken  by  a  king  introduces  a 
complicating  factor  into  the  psychological 
situation,  a  factor  the  importance  of  which  is 
indicated  by  the  frequent  experience  of  psycho- 
analytic investigation  in  which  the  king  acts 
as  the  surrogate  of  the  father,  while  the 
corresponding  place  of  the  father  or  ideal 
leader  in  a  country  without  a  king  may  be 
taken  by  President,  Governor  or  Mayor. 

Examples  of  government  in  communistic 
communities,  such  as  those  of  Melanesia, 
suggest  that  the  leader  is  not  essential  to 
success  in  many  lines  of  activity  in  which  we 

52 


INSTINCT  IN   RELATION  TO   SOCIETY 

are  inclined  to  look  upon  him  as  indispen- 
sable. One  of  the  most  important,  but  at 
the  same  time  most  difficult  problems  now 
facing  peoples  moving  towards,  or  striving  to 
move  towards,  a  genuine  democracy  is  how 
far  it  will  be  possible  for  the  immense  com- 
munities of  modern  times  to  reach  the  har- 
mony of  social  action  which  has  been  attained 
by  many  small  communities  without  a  leader 
or  with  a  leadership  the  importance  of  which 
in  social  life  has  been  reduced  to  very  small 
dimensions.  This  is,  however,  looking  far 
into  the  future.  At  present  it  seems  fairly 
clear  that  no  great  movement  is  likely  to 
succeed  except  under  the  leadership  of  one 
who  is  able  to  inspire  a  degree  of  confidence 
comparable  with  that  which  actuates  the 
instinctive  attitude  of  the  animal  herd  towards 
its  leader.  If  this  be  so,  this  conclusion 
has  as  its  corollary  the  necessity  of  a  person- 
ality which  appeals  more  largely  to  the 
emotions  than  to  the  intelligence.  Depres- 
sing as  this  conclusion  may  seem,  I  believe 
that  no  leader  is  likely  to  have  a  deep  or 
permanent  influence  unless  among  those  char- 
acters which  appeal  to  the  emotions  of  the 
group,  and  I  hope  as  chief  among  them  are 
to  be  found  honesty  and  steadfastness  of 
purpose  and  those  altruistic  sentiments  which 
have  been  developed  on  the  foundation  of 
the  common  interests  of  which  the  herd- 
instinct  is  the  deepest  and  oldest  expression. 

53 


THE   CONCEPT  OF  THE   MORBID 
IN   SOCIOLOGY 


Ill 

THK   CONCEPT   OV^  THE   MORBID   IN   SOCIOI.OGY 

In  works  on  sociology  and  politics  it  is  a 
commonplace  to  use  language  derived  from 
medicine  when  the  writers  are  referring  to 
features  of  society  which  are  regarded  as 
abnormal.  When  Mr  Tawney,  wishing  to 
emphasise  the  unsatisfactory  aspects  of  the 
social  conditions  of  our  civilisation,  speaks 
of  "  the  Sickness  of  an  Acquisitive  Society," 
or  when  we  speak  of  the  paralysis  of  a  social 
institution  or  the  convulsions  of  a  revolu- 
tion, we  are  using  similes  derived  more  or 
less  directly  from  pathological  states  of  the 
individual  to  denote  states  of  society.  In 
general  such  usage  is  only  regarded  as  meta- 
phorical, and  so  long  as  there  is  nothing  more 
than  an  employment  of  metaphor  and  simile, 
no  problem  of  importance  is  raised.  I  pro- 
pose in  this  lecture,  however,  to  deal  with 
the  question  whether  it  may  not  be  possible 
to  use  such  terms  in  more  than  a  metaphorical 
sense  so  that  the  words  will  carry  over  into 
their  new  application  a  significance  definitely 
connected  with  that  which  they  bear  when 

57  H 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

they  are  used  of  the  individuaL  The  problem 
I  wish  to  raise  in  this  lecture  is  whether  it  is 
possible  to  use  some  part,  at  any  rate,  of  the 
terminology  of  the  medicine  of  the  individual 
for  the  description  and  classification  of  states 
of  society  and  for  the  methods  by  which 
these  states  may,  when  necessary,  be  treated 
by  the  statesman  and  social  reformer.  The 
problem  before  us  will  be  whether  it  is  pos- 
sible, and  if  so  whether  it  is  expedient,  to 
introduce  into  the  science  of  sociology  the 
concepts  and  terminology  of  disease. 

Before  I  enter  upon  this  topic  one  or  two 
preliminary  problems  will  have  to  be  con- 
sidered, and  I  will  begin  with  one  which  has 
long  aroused  interest,  viz.  the  question  whether 
there  is  any  utility  in  the  analogy,  or  possibly 
more  than  the  analogy,  of  society  with  the 
living  organism.  I  do  not  believe  that  it 
is  likely  to  be  useful  to  introduce  concepts 
and  terminology  derived  from  medicine  into 
sociology  and  politics  unless  this  analogy, 
or  more  than  analogy,  holds  good. 

The  resemblance  between  society  and  the 
living  organism  is  one  which  has  long  excited 
interest  and  has  been  frequently  discussed, 
usually  with  results  tending  to  belittle  the 
value  of  the  resemblance  from  the  scientific 
point  of  view.  The  most  recent  discussion 
of  the  problem  with  which  I  am  acquainted 
is  that  which  we  owe  to  Dr  Morris  Ginsberg, 
who  has  considered  the  matter  in  his  valuable 

58 


THE  MORBID   IN   SOCIOLOGY 

little  book  on  The  Psychology  of  Society.  It 
would  take  up  too  large  a  part  of  this  lecture 
to  deal  fully  with  his  grounds  for  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  value  of  the  analogy,  and  I  can 
only  consider  them  briefly. 

Mr  Ginsberg's  first  objection  is  that  the 
analogy  leads  people  to  exaggerate  the  unity 
of  society.  To  this  I  should  answer  that  the 
modern  conception  of  the  organism,  and 
especially  of  the  human  organism,  is  that 
it  has  much  less  unity  and  harmony  than 
was  once  supposed.  To  speak  at  first  on  the 
purely  physiological  plane  we  know  that 
the  living  body  is  the  seat  of  conflicts  between 
forces  of  many  different  kinds  ;  that  various 
secretions  of  the  body  have  actions  antagon- 
istic to  one  another,  and  that  the  apparent 
harmony  of  the  body  is  due  to  a  highly  delicate 
process  of  adjustment  whereby  a  balance  is 
held  between  these  conflicting  forces.  One 
of  the  chief  conditions  of  the  states  we  call 
disease  is  a  breaking  down  of  this  balance  and 
adjustment. 

Again,  we  know  that  the  body  is  the  seat 
of  a  continuous  conflict  between  certain 
intrinsic  forces  and  external  enemies  in  the 
forms  of  lowly  organisms  which  are  con- 
tinually finding  their  way  into  the  body  in  a 
manner  closely  comparable  with  the  invasion 
of  foreign  enemies.  We  also  know  that  there 
exist  within  the  body  countless  hosts  of  other 
lowly  organisms  of  a  friendly  sort,  such  as  the 

59 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

flora  of  the  alimentary  canal,  upon  whose 
peaceful  collaboration  the  harmonious,  or 
in  other  words,  the  healthy  working  of  the 
organism  largely  depends.  Even  keeping  in 
the  region  of  pure  physiology,  and  leaving  the 
nervous  system  and  the  mind  on  one  side, 
I  am  not  sure  that  one  who  appreciates 
the  vast  complexity  of  the  forces  normally  in 
conflict  within  the  organism  might  not  reverse 
Mr  Ginsberg's  objection  and  reject  the  analogy 
because  it  might  lead  us  to  exaggerate  the 
unity  of  the  living  organism. 

Mr  Ginsberg's  second  objection  is  that  the 
social  community  is  infinitely  complex,  con- 
sisting of  unity  within  unity,  group  within 
group.  This  has  perhaps  been  already  par- 
tially answered  when  dealing  with  the  organ- 
ism Vv^ithout  mentioning  the  nervous  system, 
but  the  objection  becomes  even  less  valid 
when  the  nervous  system  is  taken  into  account, 
for  this  directive  and  regulative  department 
of  the  living  organism  might  with  our  present 
knowledge  be  described  almost  in  Mr  Gins- 
berg's words  as  consisting  of  unity  within 
unity,  group  within  group,  the  integration  of 
which  into  a  harmonious  system  is  the  func- 
tion of  its  highest  regions. 

The  third  objection  made  by  Mr  Ginsberg, 
that  the  organic  theory  ignores  the  elements  of 
conflict  and  disharmony  which  abound  in  the 
social  community,  has  again,  I  hope,  been 
already  answered.     I  cannot  refrain,  however, 

60 


THE  MORBID   IN   SOCIOLOGY 

from  pointing  out  that  when  Mr  Ginsberg 
goes  on  to  say  that  the  unity  of  society  is 
not  attained  by  the  Hberation  of  Hving 
energy  but  is  only  won  by  mechanical  sup- 
pression and  repression,  he  is  even  using  the 
actual  nomenclature  by  means  of  which  we 
are  now  accustomed  to  describe  the  mechan- 
isms by  means  of  which  the  harmony  of  the 
living  organism  is  attained  in  so  far  as  this 
harmony  is  influenced  by  factors  of  a  psycho- 
logical kind. 

A  last  objection  made  by  Mr  Ginsberg  is 
one  with  which  I  have  much  sympathy, 
though  it  is  of  a  practical  kind  rather  than 
one  inherent  in  the  nature  of  the  resem- 
blance. Mr  Ginsberg  points  out,  I  believe 
with  justice,  that  the  analogy  between  society 
and  organism  may  tend  to  obscure  the  unique- 
ness of  the  position  of  the  individual  within 
the  social  organism,  with  the  possible  practical 
consequence  that  a  belief  in  the  unity  of  the 
social  group  may  tend  to  weaken  the  sense  of 
individual  responsibility  which  every  member 
of  the  group  should  possess.  This  practical 
difficulty,  however,  cannot  be  allowed  to 
interfere  with  the  concept  of  similarity  of 
constitution  if,  on  other  grounds,  this  can 
be  shown  to  exist. 

I  must  be  content  for  the  present  with 
this  cursory  reply  to  the  most  recent  objec- 
tions which  have  been  made  to  the  validity 
of  the  analogy  between  human  society  and 

6i 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

the  living  organisms  which  form  the  individual 
elements  of  that  society.  It  must  be  enough 
to  say  that  modern  knowledge  concerning 
the  living  organism,  both  on  the  physiolo- 
gical and  the  psychological  sides,  teaches  us 
that  there  is  much  less  difference  in  com- 
plexity between  society  and  organism  than 
was  formerly  supposed,  and  that  the  differ- 
ence between  them  is  rather  to  be  sought  in 
the  degree  of  plasticity  and  capacity  for 
modification.  Consequently,  the  difference 
between  society  and  organism  appears  un- 
duly great  when  we  compare  the  living  organ- 
ism with  a  society  like  our  own.  It  becomes 
far  closer  when  we  are  dealing  with  those 
more  lowly  societies  which,  through  long 
absence  of  the  disturbing  factors  introduced 
by  foreign  influence,  have  become  relatively 
stable  and  more  fully  adapted  to  their  en- 
vironment. The  problems  raised  by  the  study 
of  the  many  points  of  resemblance  between 
society  and  organism  will  only  become  cap- 
able of  solution  when  we  have  a  far  more 
extensive  knowledge  than  we  now  possess  of 
these  two  products  of  vital  activity.  For 
the  present  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the 
resemblance  not  only  forms  a  useful  guide  to 
practice,  but  that  we  shall  in  time  come  to 
see  that  the  resemblance  is  something  more 
than  an  analogy,  and  depends  on  the  opera- 
tion of  some  fundamental  laws  of  development 
common  to  both  organism  and  society. 

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THE  MORBID   IN  SOCIOLOGY 

Among  the  many  lines  of  approach  to  the 
establishment  or  disproof  of  such  community 
of  nature  I  believe  that  a  foremost  place  will 
be  taken  by  the  study  of  the  morbid  states 
of  each.  If  it  should  be  possible  to  trace  in 
the  morbid  states  of  both  society  and  organism 
the  action  of  certain  common  laws,  and  on 
the  practical  side  to  treat  with  success  the 
morbid  states  of  one  by  measures  derived 
from  the  study  of  the  other,  we  shall  be 
forging  links  of  a  most  important  kind  in 
the  chain  by  which  society  and  organism 
may  be  brought  under  one  law  or  set  of 
laws.  Returning  to  the  thesis  of  my  first 
lecture,  I  must  point  out  that  the  time  is  not 
yet  ripe  for  the  direct  application  of  methods 
derived  from  the  medicine  of  the  individual 
to  the  morbid  states  of  society,  but  rather 
that  the  resemblance  between  the  two  may 
provide  us  with  a  working  scheme  which  must 
be  tested  by  long  and  patient  observation. 
There  is  little  question  that,  backward  as 
it  may  be,  the  medicine  of  the  organism  is 
more  advanced  than  the  medicine  of  society. 
While  the  one  is  now  founded  on  definite 
principles  and  laws,  the  other  is  still  in  the 
stage  of  pure  empiricism.  Nevertheless  it 
would  be  dangerous  to  apply  the  medicine 
of  the  individual  to  the  disorders  of  society 
until  we  know  far  more  than  at  present  of  the 
laws  which  regulate  the  normal  working  of 
society.     At  the  same  time  I  believe  that  the 

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PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

statesman  and  the  politician  would  be  largely 
assisted  in  obtaining  this  knowledge  by  the 
lessons  to  be  learnt  from  the  discipline 
which  has  as  its  subject  the  morbid  state  of 
the  individual,  and  in  this  lecture  I  propose 
to  consider  as  fully  as  time  allows  some  points 
of  resemblance  between  organism  and  society 
from  the  pathological  standpoint. 

I  will  begin  by  pointing  out  certain  general 
resemblances  between  the  general  methods 
of  medicine  and  those  by  which  we  must 
approach  the  evils  of  society.  When  a  phy- 
sician is  called  upon  to  treat  the  morbid 
state  of  an  individual  the  first  process  he 
employs  is  diagnosis.  Only  when  he  has 
made  up  his  mind  as  to  the  exact  nature  of 
the  complaint  is  he  in  a  position  to  undertake 
the  proper  treatment.  Often  he  has  to  begin 
to  treat  his  patient  before  he  has  finished 
his  diagnosis,  and  then  has  to  adopt  palliative 
measures  directed  to  relieve  the  immediate 
and  often  superficial  symptoms,  and  when  a 
complete  diagnosis  is  impossible  his  treat- 
ment is  never  more  than  of  this  kind.  But 
the  essential  feature  of  modern  medicine  is 
that  the  physician  is  not  content,  or  should 
not  be  content,  to  treat  symptoms,  but 
bases  his  treatment  upon  a  knowledge  of  the 
deeper  morbid  states  of  which  the  symptoms 
are  but  the  superficial  manifestation.  The 
measures  which  follow  the  complete  diag- 
nosis are  directed  to  restore  to  their  normal 

64 


THE  MORBID  IN  SOCIOLOGY 

state,  as  far  as  possible,  the  processes  which 
have  fallen  into  disorder.  It  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  point  out  how  exactly  this  applies 
to  the  morbid  states  of  society.  Every 
student  of  political  science  recognises  the 
necessity  of  going  beneath  the  surface  and 
seeking  out  the  deeper  and  less  obvious 
causes  of  social  evils,  but  in  practice  the  poli- 
tician is  just  as  prone  to  adopt  the  easy 
course  of  treating  symptoms  as  is  the  unskilful 
or  imscrupulous  physician. 

Another  point  of  close  resemblance  between 
the  morbid  states  of  society  and  organism 
is  the  great  difficulty  and  relative  uncer- 
tainty of  the  prognosis  in  both.  By  prog- 
nosis in  medicine  we  mean  the  process  of 
foretelling  the  future  course  of  the  disease, 
and  the  great  difficulty  of  this  in  each  of  the 
departments  of  life  we  are  comparing  is  a 
necessary  result  of  the  immense  complexity 
of  the  structures  concerned.  In  this  con- 
nection it  may  be  noted  that  the  greater  the 
plasticity  of  the  structure  concerned,  the 
greater  will  be  the  difficulty  of  prognosis, 
and  that  consequently  it  is,  and  will  be,  even 
with  greater  knowledge,  more  difficult  to 
foresee  the  results  of  our  political  remedies 
than  of  those  measures  by  which  the  physician 
treats  the  morbid  states  of  the  individual. 

It  will  perhaps  have  appeared  strange  to 
some  of  you  that  in  a  course  of  lectures 
devoted   to   the   relations   between   psycho- 

65  I 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

logy  and  politics  I  should  have  devoted  so 
much  time  to  points  of  resemblance  between 
the  general  principles  of  medicine  and  those 
by  the  application  of  which  we  may  hope  to 
remedy  the  evils  of  society.  I  have  done  so 
because  this  course  is  essential  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  modern  attitude  towards  the 
morbid  states  of  the  individual  mind  in 
which  we  should  expect  to  find  the  resemblance 
with  the  morbid  states  of  society  especially 
close.  If  I  were  asked  to  state  the  most  im- 
portant feature  of  the  psychological  medicine 
of  to-day  I  should  stress  its  adoption  of  the 
fundamental  principle  of  the  medicine  of 
the  body  that  we  must  not  be  content  to 
treat  the  superficial  symptom,  but  must  get 
down  to  the  roots  of  the  mental  malady. 
The  older  methods  of  hypnotism  and  sugges- 
tion, which  not  long  ago  dominated  the  medi- 
cine of  the  mind  and  are  still  so  popular 
among  the  general  public  as  well  as  among  the 
less  instructed  of  the  medical  profession, 
attempt  nothing  more  than  the  treatment 
of  symptoms.  They  make  no  attempt  to 
reach  the  deeper  causes  to  which  these  super- 
ficial manifestations  are  due.  In  the  newer 
methods,  on  the  other  hand,  the  necessity  is 
recognised  of  going  to  the  roots  of  the  malady, 
which  is  now  one  of  the  commonplaces  of 
general  medicine.  At  the  present  moment 
these  new  methods,  sound  as  they  are  in 
principle,  are  in  danger  of  falling  into  serious 

66 


THE  MORBID   IN   SOCIOLOGY 

discredit  through  the  vagaries  and  extrava- 
gances of  those  who  are  putting  them  into 
practice,  but  some  of  the  lessons  of  the  new 
psychiatry  are  so  obvious  that  their  value  is 
coming  to  be  recognised  by  all.  I  propose 
to  deal  with  one  or  two  of  these  well-established 
lessons  and  inquire  whether  they  can  help  us 
in  the  diagnosis  and  treatment  of  the  evils  of 
society. 

One  of  the  most  striking  of  these  lessons 
of  the  new  psychiatry  teaches  us  the  evil 
effects  of  repression,  meaning  by  this  term  the 
process  of  putting  unpleasant  experience  aside 
so  that  it  may  be  forgotten,  instead  of  facing 
the  situation  and  tracing  it  to  its  sources 
so  that  it  may  be  understood  and  suitable 
measures  taken  to  put  the  situation  right. 
There  is  an  overwhelming  mass  of  evidence 
to  the  effect  that  repression  does  not  remove 
the  evil,  but  that  at  the  best  the  repressed 
experience  remains  in  existence,  always  liable 
to  flare  up  into  activity  later  in  life,  while 
in  the  less  favourable  cases  it  leads  directly 
to  a  whole  series  of  morbid  symptoms  which 
greatly  lower  vitality  and  efficiency. 

It  is  perhaps  a  significant  fact  that  the 
word  which  has  been  chosen  by  the  physician 
to  designate  this  far-reaching  morbid  process 
of  the  individual  life  is  one  with  which  we  are 
familiar  when  speaking  of  political  activity. 
Before  I  proceed  to  compare  the  repression 
of  psychological  medicine  with  the  repressive 

67 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

measures  of  politics,  it  will  be  well  that  we 
shall  not  trust  to  the  mere  resemblance  of 
nomenclature,  but  shall  begin  by  inquiring 
whether  the  repression  of  the  physician  is  a 
process  of  the  same  order  as  the  repression  of 
the  statesman  or  politician.  In  order  to 
do  so  adequately  it  will  be  necessary  to  say 
that  in  my  belief  the  repression  of  the  psychi- 
atrist is  a  term  which  includes  in  its  denotation 
several  processes  which  should  be  distin- 
guished from  one  another.  One  distinction 
of  great  importance  is  the  extent  to  which  the 
process  is  put  into  action  consciously,  or, 
as  I  prefer  to  say,  wittingly.  We  need  far 
more  study  than  has  been  given  to  the  subject 
at  present  to  enable  us  to  understand  the 
influence  of  different  degrees  of  the  witting 
application  of  repression,  but  it  is  evident 
that  exactly  the  same  kind  of  distinction 
holds  good  of  social  repression.  In  this 
case  it  is  easy  to  recognise  two  very  different 
varieties  of  the  process.  We  all  know  the 
process  by  which  a  whole  nation,  or  more 
frequently  a  whole  class,  shut  out  of  their 
minds,  apparently  with  success,  whole  regions 
of  the  social  activities  which  are  going  on 
around  them.  How  many  are  there  who 
lead  their  lives  without  ever  giving  a  thought 
to  the  poverty  which  appals  those  from  the 
new  countries  of  the  world  who  visit  this 
island,  how  many  who  never  give  a  thought 
to  the  problems  of  the  slums  which  perhaps 

68 


THE  MORBID   IN   SOCIOLOGY 

lie  within  a  stone's-throw  of  their  luxurious 
homes.  In  this  case  the  repression  may  be 
largely  unwitting.  The  thought-process  spon- 
taneously avoids  subjects  which  would  arouse 
unpleasant  states  of  mind.  There  may  be  no 
deliberate  and  witting  turning  of  the  atten- 
tion from  these  to  topics  of  a  more  agreeable 
kind,  and  the  process  is  assisted  in  many 
cases  by  definite  defence-mechanisms  of  which 
a  good  example  is  the  well-established  con- 
vention of  polite  society  according  to  which 
it  is  bad  form  to  make  unpleasant  social 
matters  the  subject  of  conversation.  Far 
different  from  this  is  that  process  of  repression 
by  which  a  dominant  class  deliberately  and 
wittingly  represses  all  outward  manifesta- 
tions of  the  discontent  which  social  wrongs 
arouse. 

There  is  a  close  resemblance  between  the 
first  of  these  two  kinds  of  social  repression 
and  the  individual  process  by  which  we  un- 
wittingly forget  an  obligation  which  would 
bring  some  unpleasant  matter  to  conscious- 
ness. The  similarity  between  this  social  pro- 
cess of  repression  and  the  process  of  purposive 
forgetting,  the  knowledge  of  which  we  owe  so 
largely  to  Freud,  is  so  close  as  to  leave  little 
doubt  that  we  are  dealing  with  one  and  the 
same  process  put  into  activity  in  the  one 
case  by  an  individual  and  in  the  other  by 
a  group.  We  are  in  a  more  difiicult  position 
when  we  turn  to  the  second  kind  of  more 

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PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

witting  repression  and  consider  whether  there 
is  any  real  community  of  nature  between  the 
process  by  which  the  individual  thrusts  un- 
pleasant topics  aside,  and  deliberately  refuses 
to  allow  his  mind  to  dwell  upon  them,  and 
the  equally  witting  process  by  which  the 
leaders  of  a  class  prevent  unpleasant  topics 
from  reaching  those  who  might  thereby 
become  dissatisfied  with  the  existing  social 
order. 

Before  considering  this  matter  I  should 
like  to  point  out  a  possible  source  of  error 
derived  from  nomenclature.  A  large  part 
of  Freud's  scheme  of  the  psychology  of  the 
individual  is  based  on  his  concept  of  the 
censorship,  in  which  case  he  has  employed  a 
term  derived  from  a  purely  social  procedure 
to  denote  processes  of  the  individual  mind. 
Elsewhere  *  I  have  sought  to  show  that  this 
concept  is  of  little,  if  any,  value  in  helping 
us  to  understand  the  nature  of  individual 
mental  process,  and  I  now  urge  the  further 
objection  that  by  the  application  in  individual 
psychology  of  a  concept  which  has  been 
definitely  drawn  from  a  social  procedure 
Freud  runs  the  danger  of  prejudicing  the 
study  of  the  relation  between  individual 
and  social  processes.  The  use  of  this  term 
and  concept  implies  a  community  of  nature 

*  Instinct  and  the  Unconscious,  2nd  edition,  1922,  page  228; 
British  Journal  of  Psychology  (General  Lecture),  1921,  vol.  xii. 
page  113. 

70 


THE  MORBID  IN  SOCIOLOGY 

between  individual  and  social  process  which 
can  only  be  established  by  means  of  a  far 
wider  study  than  has  yet  been  attempted. 
It  is  exceptional  to  find  people  who  are  not 
liable  to  be  misled  by  verbal  resemblances, 
and  in  comparing  individual  with  social 
repression  we  must  beware  of  being  influenced 
by  considerations  based  on  the  Freudian  use 
of  the  concept  of  censorship. 

Even  apart,  however,  from  the  similarity 
between  the  individual  and  social  processes 
of  repression  which  suggested  to  Freud  his 
use  of  the  concept  of  the  censorship,  the 
witting  repression  of  the  individual  and  that 
of  the  group  have  much  in  common.  It  is 
now  widely  recognised  that  by  repressing 
experience  so  that  it  no  longer  comes  naturally 
to  consciousness,  the  repressed  experience 
is  not  thereby  abolished,  but  persists  below 
the  surface  and  may  manifest  its  presence  in 
many  indirect  ways.  According  to  the  pre- 
vailing theory  of  the  psycho-neuroses  many  of 
the  symptoms  of  these  disorders  are  the  direct 
effect  of  the  activity  of  such  repressed  or  sup- 
pressed experience.  Similarly,  few  can  doubt 
that  by  the  process  of  social  repression  the 
evils  whose  manifest  expression  is  prevented 
do  not  thereby  cease  to  exist,  but  smoulder  on 
beneath  the  surface  to  break  out  into  renewed 
activity  when  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  bear 
them  in  silence.  In  the  individual  it  is  now 
generally   recognised  that   one   of  the   most 

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PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

frequent  ways  in  which  repressed  or  sup- 
pressed experience  manifests  itself  is  in  the 
nightmare,  in  which  the  emotional  state 
natural  to  the  experience  which  has  been 
repressed  bursts  out  with  an  intensity  far 
greater  than  that  which  would  have  accom- 
panied its  unrestricted  expression  in  the 
waking  life.  Elsewhere  *  I  have  suggested 
that  the  social  counterpart  of  the  nightmare 
is  the  revolution  ;  that  if  the  affects  natural 
to  the  experience  of  social  wrongs  are  not 
allowed  to  find  expression  in  such  a  way  as 
will  lead  to  the  recognition  of  the  wrongs 
and  to  the  measures  which  follow  upon  this 
recognition,  there  will  sooner  or  later  be  violent 
and  unregulated,  all-or-none  manifestations 
comparable  with  those  of  the  nightmare. 

The  resemblances  between  the  effects  of 
individual  and  social  repression  are  definitely 
reinforced  when  we  turn  to  the  nature  of  the 
treatment  by  which  the  morbid  states  may  be 
remedied.  The  evidence  is  now  conclusive 
that  the  occurrence  of  nightmares  and  other 
morbid  states  which  follow  upon  repression  in 
the  individual  disappear  when  the  sufierer  no 
longer  attempts  to  put  his  troubles  out  of 
sight,  but  faces  them  and  succeeds  in  dealing 
with  them  as  if  they  had  a  less  painful  char- 
acter. Especially  important  is  it  that  he 
shall  come  to  understand  the  nature  of  his 

*  Dreams  and  Primitive  Culture,  Manchester  University  Press, 
1917-18,  page  20. 

72 


THE  MORBID   IN   SOCIOLOGY 

troubles  and  shall  appreciate  the  real  reason, 
often  very  different  from  the  apparent  reason, 
why  the  experience  which  he  has  been  repres- 
sing has  gained  its  highly  painful  character. 
In  other  words  the  two  requisites  for  the 
proper  treatment  of  the  states  produced  in 
the  individual  by  repression  are  courage  and 
knowledge  ;  courage  to  face  experience  from 
which  there  is  a  natural  tendency  to  flee,  as 
well  as  the  still  greater  courage  required  to 
look  closel}^  into  the  nature  of  the  painful 
experience  and  thus  gain  the  knowledge 
which  forms  the  other  requisite  for  success- 
ful treatment.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  a  similar  process  is  necessary  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  social  evils  produced  by  repression 
or  for  which  repressive  measures  have  been 
employed  by  unwise  rulers.  Few^  who  are 
capable  of  regarding  social  situations  dis- 
passionately^ can  doubt  the  value  of  knowledge 
of  the  social  evils  in  connection  with  which  a 
crude  policy  of  repression  has  been  adopted. 
Here  again  the  two  things  needed  are  courage 
and  knowledge.  Not  onty  is  the  courage 
needed  to  face  the  social  evils  for  which  re- 
pression is  usually  emplo3'ed  of  the  same  order 
as  that  needed  by  the  individual  when  he  is 
advised  to  face  and  tmderstand  the  troubles 
he  has  been  repressing.  The  knowledge 
needed  is  also  of  the  same  order,  for  in  the 
social  as  in  the  individual  case  nothing  is 
more  valuable  than  the  study  of  the  process, 

73  K 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

the  historical  process,  by  which  the  evils 
have  come  into  existence.  In  each  case  the 
most  important  factor  in  treatment  is  the 
discovery,  and  still  more  difficult,  the  acknow- 
ledgment, of  the  faults  by  which  the  disorder 
has  been  produced  or  accentuated. 

I  must  be  content  this  evening  with  this 
brief  comparison  of  the  nature  of  repression 
in  the  individual  and  in  the  group  and  of 
the  treatment  by  which  the  disorders  follow- 
ing upon  repression  may  be  remedied. 

Another  example  of  the  similarity  in  nature 
and  treatment  between  individual  and  social 
disorders  is  to  be  found  in  connection  with  the 
abuse  of  alcohol.  In  this  case  the  resem- 
blance between  the  intemperance  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  intemperance  of  the  group  is  so 
obvious  that  there  is  no  need  to  dwell  upon  it. 
It  will  only  be  necessary  to  deal  with  certain 
striking  resemblances  in  the  treatment  of  the 
two  kinds  of  disorder.  Our  new  psychological 
knowledge  has  had  a  great  effect  on  the  modern 
treatment  of  alcoholism  in  the  individual.  In 
the  older  modes  of  treatment  the  chief  remedy 
was  removal  for  prolonged  periods  from  the 
temptations  caused  by  ready  access  to  the 
means  of  obtaining  alcohol,  combined  with 
appeals  to  reason,  based  largely  on  moral 
considerations.  In  some  cases  where  it  was 
only  necessary  to  break  a  morbid  habit, 
these  lines  of  treatment  were  efficacious,  but 
failures  were  numerous.     Modern  methods  of 

74 


THE  MORBID   IN   SOCIOLOGY 

treatment  are  based  on  the  view  that  in  many 
cases  alcoholism  is  only  a  means  of  escape  from 
some  situation  which  the  sufferer  is  unable  to 
endure  without  the  assistance  provided  by  the 
lowering  of  sensibility  and  diminished  powers 
of  appreciation  produced  by  alcohol.  In  other 
words  resort  to  alcohol  in  such  cases  is  a 
substitute  for  repression,  or  perhaps  more 
correctly,  it  is  a  process  by  which  a  state  allied 
to  repression  is  produced  by  artificial  means. 
The  treatment  now  adopted  is  on  the  same 
lines  as  that  for  repression.  The  sufferer  is 
taught  to  face  his  trouble,  probe  it  to  its 
source,  and  discover  how  it  may  be  possible 
to  live  with  it  in  peace  so  that  it  will  be  no 
longer  necessary  to  have  recourse  to  the  para- 
lysing agency  of  alcohol. 

If  there  is  any  value  in  the  resemblance 
between  the  morbid  processes  of  the  individual 
and  of  the  group  it  seems  fairly  obvious  that 
prohibition  is  a  measure  of  the  same  order  as 
the  isolation  and  removal  from  temptation 
of  the  older  way  of  treating  the  alcoholism 
of  the  individual.  It  is  a  characteristic 
example  of  the  old  method  in  which  the 
physician  was  content  to  treat  symptoms 
without  discovering  the  real  nature  of  the 
underlying  morbid  state  which  leads  to  the 
abuse  of | alcohol.  The  other  old  method  of 
treating  the  individual  by  means  of  appeal 
to  reason  and  moral  considerations  has  also 
been  applied  in  full  force  to  the  social  evil, 

75 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

but  with  little  effect  on  the  drink  bill  of  the 
nation.  It  becomes  a  question  whether  the 
social  malady  should  not  be  treated  on  lines 
comparable  with  those  which  are  now  being 
employed  to  combat  the  individual  disorder, 
and  whether  we  should  not  inquire  far  more 
insistently  than  at  present  into  the  deeper 
causes  of  the  social  evil.  Here  it  would  be 
well  to  have  more  knowledge  comparable 
with  that  upon  which  the  physician  relies  in 
his  treatment  of  the  individual.  One  example 
of  such  knowledge  which  the  social  reformer 
would  like  to  possess  is  whether  there  is 
evidence  for  a  relation  between  the  preval- 
ence of  drunkenness  and  insufficient  or  in- 
adequate housing.  I  was  once  told  by  a  large 
owner  of  property  of  the  striking  influence 
in  this  respect  produced  in  his  experience 
by  an  extensive  reconstruction  of  a  town  in 
which  slums  were  abolished,  and  it  ought  to  be 
possible  to  obtain  records  bearing  on  this 
relation.  Even  in  the  absence  of  such  records 
I  have  little  doubt  that  decent  housing 
throughout  the  country  would  do  much  to 
remedy  the  more  crying  evils  due  to  alcohol. 
In  stating  this  belief  founded  upon  the  appli- 
cation of  the  principles  of  the  medicine  of 
the  individual  to  the  medicine  of  society,  I 
have  perhaps  gone  beyond  the  task  I  set 
myself  in  the  first  lecture  of  stating  problems 
rather  than  attempting  their  solution.  Such 
conclusions   as   I   have   suggested   are   only, 

76 


THE  MORBID   IN   SOCIOLOGY 

however,  the  outcome  of  the  adoption  of  a 
principle  in  which  modern  knowledge  only 
reinforces  the  teachings  of  common-sense, 
to  the  effect  that  in  the  society  as  with  the 
individual  we  should  not  be  content  to  treat 
symptoms,  but  should  attack  the  deeper 
foundations  upon  which  the  symptoms  rest. 

I  believe  that  here,  as  in  the  treatment  of 
the  social  evils  of  alcoholism  and  repression, 
the  suggestions  derived  from  the  medicine  of 
the  individual  are  so  closely  in  accordance  with 
reason  and  common-sense  that  we  are  even 
now  justified  in  using  them  in  many  cases 
as  guides,  but  this  possibility  of  immediate 
practical  application  should  not  blind  us  to 
the  fact  that  our  treatment  is  experimental, 
and  that  measures  should  be  employed  in  such 
a  manner  that  their  results  may  be  tested  and 
utilised  as  means  of  adding  to  that  knowledge 
of  social  psychology  whereby  the  principles 
there  foimd  useful  may  receive  a  more  ex- 
tended application.  Every  case  in  which  we 
are  able  to  demonstrate  the  value  of  the 
knowledge  derived  from  the  medicine  of  the 
individual  in  the  treatment  of  social  evils 
adds  another  link  in  the  chain  of  evidence  in 
favour  of  the  view  that  the  relation  between 
society  and  organism  is  not  merely  a  pleasing 
analogy,  but  has  reference  to  an  underlying 
community  of  nature. 

I  should  like  to  conclude  with  a  suggestion 
which  will  serve  to  bring  the  subject  of  this 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

lecture  into  relation  with  that  of  last  week. 
The  main  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  the  con- 
siderations laid  before  you  this  evening  is  that 
the  principle  of  treating  disorders  of  the  indi- 
vidual mind  by  attacking  underlying  causes 
rather  than  superficial  symptoms,  which  is  the 
key-note  of  modern  psycho-therapy,  also  holds 
good  of  social  therapy.  Just  as  the  physician 
is  not  now  content  to  employ  the  agencies  of 
faith  and  suggestion,  whether  used  wittingly 
or  unwittingly,  but  tries  to  lead  his  patient 
to  a  full  understanding  of  his  malady  and  of 
the  causes  by  which  it  has  been  produced, 
and  just  as  he  attempts  to  bring  about  a 
relation  between  himself  and  his  patient  in 
which  they  work  together  with  understanding 
towards  a  common  end,  so  should  it  be  with 
the  social  leader.  Whether  it  be  in  the  smaller 
field  of  the  group  constituted  by  the  family, 
the  larger  group  formed  by  the  school  or 
college,  or  the  still  larger  group  formed  by  the 
nation,  the  leader  should  be  one  who  is  not 
satisfied  to  impose  his  will  upon  the  group  by 
the  power  of  his  personality  and  position, 
relying  in  the  main  upon  the  agencies  of 
suggestion  and  faith,  but  should  be  one  who 
takes  the  group  into  his  confidence,  leads  them 
to  see  and  understand  what  is  amiss  when 
evil  conditions  need  to  be  remedied,  and  seeks 
to  bring  leader  and  led  into  a  relation  in  which 
they  work  together  with  a  common  under- 
standing towards   a  common  goal.     At  the 

78 


THE  MORBID   IN   SOCIOLOGY 

present  time,  whether  it  be  family,  school  or 
larger  social  group  which  is  concerned,  we 
have  brought  over  into  human  leadership  far 
too  much  of  the  crude  attitude  of  the  instinc- 
tive kind  which  we  have  inherited  from  our 
animal  ancestry.  But  the  collaboration  of 
leader  and  led  at  which  we  should  aim  is 
not  to  be  reached  without  far  more  under- 
standing of  the  complex  conditions  of  our 
society  than  exists  at  present.  It  is  futile  to 
speak  of  collaboration  between  leader  and 
led  in  the  modern  state  if  the  ideal  of  educa- 
tion is  merely  to  train  individual  members 
of  society  to  earn  their  bread  in  the  existing 
industrial  competition,  and  if  a  large  part 
of  the  nation  has  not  even  the  opportunity  of 
obtaining  the  instruments  by  which  the  neces- 
sary knowledge  may  be  acquired.  If  I  am 
right  in  believing  that  the  repair  of  social 
evils  is  to  be  effected  on  lines  similar  to  those 
by  which  we  are  now  learning  to  repair  the 
disorders  of  the  individual  life,  the  chief 
immediate  lesson  is  that  we  must  not  only 
make  education  readily  accessible  to  every 
member  of  the  community  capable  of  bene- 
fiting by  it.  Quite  as  important,  we  must 
think  far  more  seriously,  and  turn  the  best 
minds  of  the  nation  to  the  thought,  of  making 
education  a  means  whereby  the  group  may 
enter  into  that  collaboration  with  its  leaders 
so  that  the  disorders  of  our  civilisation  may  be 
remedied   and  the  nation  set  upon   a  road 

79 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

which    will    lead    it    back    to    health    and 
sanity. 

When  I  set  out  to  put  together  some  views 
concerning  the  relation  between  psychology 
and  politics  I  had  no  idea  where  I  should  be 
led.  I  had  no  idea  that  the  two  topics  of 
leadership  in  its  relation  to  the  herd-instinct 
which  was  the  subject  of  my  last  lecture  and 
the  study  of  the  resemblance  between  society 
and  organism  with  which  I  have  dealt  to-night 
would  lead  me,  in  what  I  hope  has  been  strict 
logical  sequence,  to  the  crying  need  for 
education  and  for  the  reform  of  education 
in  which  our  chairman  of  this  evening  has  so 
great  an  interest  and  for  which  he  has  done 
and  is  doing  so  much. 


80 


AN  ADDRESS   ON   SOCIALISM 
AND   HUMAN  NATURE 


8i 


c\o3A-^ 


IV 

AN  ADDRKSS  ON  SOCIAUSM  AND 
HUMAN  NATURE  * 

I  IMAGINE  that  I  have  been  asked  to  speak 
on  the  subject  of  "  Socialism  and  Human 
Nature  "  in  the  hope  that  I  may  be  able  to 
throw  some  light  by  means  of  psychological 
and  anthropological  knowledge  upon  the  state- 
ment so  frequently  heard  that  socialism  is 
contrary  to  human  nature.  According  to 
those  who  make  this  statement  the  habits 
of  individualism  and  competition  are  so 
deeply  engrained  in  human  nature  that  the 
co-operation  in  the  interest  of  the  community 
which  is  the  essential  process  underlying 
socialism  has  no  chance  of  fruition. 

Owing  to  the  shortness  of  the  time  at  my 
disposal  I  do  not  propose  to  take  up  your 
time  with  any  attempt  to  define  socialism. 
It  must  be  sufficient  to  say  that  when  I 
speak  of  socialism  I  mean  a  form  of  society 
the  individual  members  of  which  are  ready 
to  work  for  the  common  good  without  the 

*  An   address  given  to   The   Critical   Society   at   University 
College  on  25th  May  1922. 

83 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

incentive  that  they  as  individuals  are  going  to 
reap  an  immediate  advantage  from  their 
labour.  If  I  had  had  time  I  should  have 
liked  to  give  you  definite  examples  of  such 
societies  and  of  social  practices  which  would 
come  within  this  meaning  of  socialism.  I 
must  be  content  with  one  example.  In 
Melanesia  all  the  members  of  a  social  group 
of  considerable  size  are  allowed  the  use  of 
the  produce  of  the  cultivated  land  of  the 
group  regardless  whether  they  have  taken 
any  part  in  the  cultivation  or  have  contri- 
buted in  any  other  manner  to  produce  the 
commodities  needed  by  the  group.  This  is, 
of  course,  an  extreme  case,  but  it  illustrates 
how  fully  such  communities  are  imbued  with 
concepts  and  sentiments  connected  with  com- 
mon property. 

In  order  to  save  time  I  propose  for  the 
moment  to  say  no  more  about  what  I  mean 
by  socialism.  I  must  ask  you  to  accept  the 
fact  of  its  existence  in  the  simple  societies 
of  many  parts  of  the  earth.  I  wish  to-day 
to  inquire  rather  into  what  is  meant  when  it 
is  said  that  this  form  of  society  is  "  contrary 
to  human  nature." 

Probably  most  of  those  who  use  these 
words  have  never  thought  what  they  mean 
but  repeat  them  as  a  well-sounding  expression 
by  means  of  which  they  can  dispose  of  what 
is  to  them  an  unpleasant  subject  about 
which  they   do   not   wish   to   think.     Those 

84 


SOCIALISM  AND   HUMAN   NATURE 

who  are  not  content  with  this  easy  course 
would  like  to  know  whether  it  is  meant 
that  there  is  something  in  the  innate  con- 
stitution of  the  human  mind  which  makes  it 
impossible  for  the  members  of  a  group  to 
collaborate  in  the  interests  of  the  group 
or  whether  it  is  only  meant  that  human  socie- 
ties have  come  into  the  possession  of  traditions 
which  inculcate  individualistic  sentiments  and 
practices.  According  to  this  second  view 
the  individualism  of  our  own  society  would 
form  part  of  what  Graham  Wallas  has  called 
our  social  heritage  as  opposed  to  something 
inherent  in  the  constitution  of  the  human 
mind.  If  this  second  point  of  view  be  that 
chosen  by  the  adherents  of  the  view  that 
socialism  is  contrary  to  human  nature,  it 
would  follow  that  we  have  only  to  change 
the  nature  of  the  social  environment  and 
human  nature  would  change  in  a  correspond- 
ing manner.  There  would  be  no  reason 
why  even  in  a  generation  the  Melanesian 
should  not  become  as  good  an  individualist 
as  any  member  of  the  Conservative  or  lyiberal 
parties,  or  why  we,  also  in  one  generation, 
should  not  become  as  good  socialists  as  the 
Melanesian.  I  assume,  therefore,  that  when 
anyone  says  that  socialism  is  contrary  to 
human  nature  he  means  that  there  is  some 
innate  disposition  of  the  human  mind  which 
is  incompatible  with  this  form  of  society. 
Such  an  innate  disposition  is  what  the  psycho- 

85 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

logist  calls  an  instinct,  so  that  the  meaning 
we  must  ascribe  to  our  phrase  is  that  man 
possesses  an  instinct  or  group  of  instincts 
which  makes  it  impossible  for  the  individual 
to  act  for  the  common  good  unless  he  or  she 
is  aware  that  the  action  for  the  common  good 
will  also  be  for  his  or  her  individual  good. 
Since  the  aspect  of  socialism  which  attracts 
most  interest  is  that  connected  with  property 
and  the  management  of  property,  the  instinct 
involved  in  this  case  will  be  the  instinct  of 
acquisition,  and  the  first  step  in  the  process 
of  discovering  whether  from  this  point  of 
view  socialism  is  contrary  to  human  nature 
would  be  to  discover  whether  such  an  instinct 
of  acquisition  exists.  I  have  already  con- 
sidered this  matter  elsewhere  *  and  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  man  possesses 
an  instinct  prompting  him  to  acquisition 
in  the  interest  of  the  individual.  If  this  be 
accepted,  at  any  rate  provisionally,  the 
problem  which  remains  is  to  discover  how 
this  instinct  has  become  so  modified  as  to 
render  possible  the  socialistic  or  even  com- 
munistic behaviour  of  such  societies  as  those 
of  Melanesia. 

The  first  question  to  be  discussed  is  whether 
the  instinct  of  acquisition,  whose  existence 
I  assume,  has  been  modified  through  the 
activity  of  some  other  instinct  or  by  means 
of  the  influence  of  tradition  and  education. 

*  See  Instinct  and  the  Unconscious,  2nd  edition,  1922,  page  260. 

86 


SOCIALISM  AND   HUMAN   NATURE 

If,  in  addition  to  the  instinct  prompting 
acquisition  in  the  interest  of  the  individual 
man  also  possesses  an  instinct  prompting 
him  to  behaviour  in  the  interest  of  the  group, 
we  should  be  provided  with  one  possible 
mechanism  by  which  the  acquisitive  instinct 
might  be  modified.  Such  an  instinct,  usually 
known  as  the  herd-instinct,  has  in  recent 
years  been  confidently  assigned  to  man  as 
part  of  his  nature,  but  hitherto  there  have 
been  singularly  few  attempts  to  justify  the 
innate  or  instinctive  character  of  the  behaviour 
which  has  been  ascribed  to  the  activity  of 
this  instinct.  We  can  be  confident  that 
this  instinct  exists  in  many  species  of  animal, 
but  we  have  no  right  to  assume  without 
inquiry  that  it  exists  in  man.  Elsewhere  * 
I  have  tried  to  show  that  spontaneity  of 
social  behaviour  such  as  would  be  explicable 
through  the  activity  of  a  herd-instinct  is 
especially  characteristic  of  such  peoples  as  the 
Melanesian  whom  I  have  chosen  to  illustrate 
the  existence  of  a  socialistic  society.  But 
though  Melanesian  social  behaviour  suggests 
a  relation  between  spontaneity  of  group- 
activity  and  socialistic  practices,  it  does  not 
of  itself  prove  either  the  existence  of  an 
instinct  or  even  of  a  special  strength  of  such 
an  instinct  in  the  Melanesian.  It  is  possible 
that   the   spontaneity   of   his   group-activity 

*  The  second  lecture  in  this  book. 
87 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

is  the  result  of  the  socialistic  or  group  senti- 
ments to  which  each  member  of  such  a  society 
is  subjected  from  his  earliest  years.  More- 
over, if  the  existence  of  a  herd-instinct  in 
man  cannot  be  directly  demonstrated  in 
a  society  where  gregariousness  is  especially 
strong,  it  is  not  likely  to  be  demonstrated 
from  observation  of  the  behaviour  of  such 
an  individualistic  society  as  our  own.  The 
existence  of  a  herd-instinct  in  man,  or  perhaps 
more  correctly  of  an  instinctive  component 
in  the  gregarious  behaviour  of  man,  will  only 
be  demonstrated  by  the  convergence  and 
agreement  of  lines  of  evidence  from  many 
different  fields  of  inquiry ;  from  the  com- 
parison of  the  behaviour  of  different  societies  ; 
from  observation  of  the  behaviour  of  the 
developing  individual ;  and  from  the  study 
of  the  disorders  of  the  behaviour  of  the 
individual  when  the  subject  of  disease  ;  at 
the  same  time  we  need  a  far  more  extensive 
knowledge  than  we  possess  at  present  of 
the  relations  between  the  behaviour  of  a 
group  as  compared  with  the  behaviour  of 
the  individuals  who  make  up  the  group. 
Some  light  should  be  thrown  upon  the  matter 
by  knowledge  of  the  past  history  of  the 
social  groupings  of  mankind.  If  the  original 
state  of  human  society  was  of  a  kind  now 
exemplified  by  the  Melanesian,  it  would 
be  far  easier  to  understand  man's  possession 
of  a  herd-instinct  than  if  in  the  early  stages 


SOCIALISM  AND   HUMAN   NATURE 

of  human  society  he  had  the  individualistic 
habits  which  seem  to  be  characteristic  of 
his  nearest  existing  anthropoid  relatives. 

Here  again  I  have  no  time  to  consider  in 
any  detail  the  evidence  concerning  the  earliest 
form  of  grouping  in  human  society  but  we 
can  be  fairly  certain  that  before  the  develop- 
ment of  agriculture  and  the  domestication  of 
animals  man  must  have  lived  in  small  groups, 
probably  corresponding  closely  in  size  and 
composition  with  the  family,  in  which  any 
close  social  cohesion  could  be  explained 
through  the  activity  of  the  parental  instinct 
so  that  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  have 
recourse  to  any  other  form  of  herd-instinct 
for  its  explanation.  There  is  much  reason 
to  believe  that  it  was  only  when  the  develop- 
ment of  agriculture  made  it  possible  for  men 
to  live  together  in  much  larger  communities 
than  were  possible  in  the  collecting  stage 
that  the  clan-organisation  with  its  many 
communistic  features  came  into  existence. 
One  of  the  most  difficult  and  disputable 
problems  of  anthropology  is  why  the  develop- 
ment of  the  clan-organisation  should  have 
been  accompanied  by  its  communistic  features 
and  by  such  high  development  of  spontaneous 
group  activity  as  we  have  some  reason  to 
associate  with  it.  One  possibility  is  that  the 
development  of  the  larger  forms  of  social 
group  again  gave  opportunity  for  the  activity 
of  an  old  herd-instinct  which  had  lain  dor- 

89  M 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

mant  during  the  long  period  when  the  human 
group  was  Httle,  if  at  all,  larger  than  the 
family.  It  may  also,  of  course,  have  been 
possible  that  the  strong  group-instinct  or 
sentiment  of  the  clan  may  have  been  only  a 
development  of  that  of  the  smaller  family 
group,  and  that  the  differences  in  respect 
of  the  nature  of  ownership  between  such 
peoples  as  the  Melanesians  and  ourselves 
depend  on  variations  in  the  relative  strengths 
of  two  conflicting  sets  of  factors,  those  of  an 
instinct  of  acquisition  on  one  side  and  those, 
either  instinctive  or  non-instinctive,  which  are 
associated  with  clan-organisation.  Another 
quite  different  line  of  evidence  concerning 
the  existence  or  non-existence  of  a  herd- 
instinct  in  man  is  derived  from  the  phenomena 
of  suggestion  which  is  most  readily  explained 
as  the  manifestation  of  a  gregarious  instinct, 
but  this  also  is  a  matter  about  which  there 
is  scope  for  difference  of  opinion.  My  own 
view  developed  in  my  book  Instinct  and  the 
Unconscious  is  that  the  process  of  suggestion 
and  its  great  influence  on  human  behaviour, 
both  in  health  and  disease,  provides  one  of 
the  strongest  lines  of  evidence  in  favour  of 
the  existence  of  a  herd-instinct  in  man; 
but,  as  you  probably  all  know,  it  has  recently 
been  held  that  the  primary  form  of  suggestion 
is  an  individual  rather  than  a  group  pheno- 
menon, and  this  view  has  been  accepted  by 
many  who  still  continue  cheerfully  to  talk 

90 


SOCIALISM  AND   HUMAN   NATURE 

of  the  herd-instinct,  apparently  quite  un- 
aware that  in  accepting  the  opinion  of  Bau- 
douin  they  are  largely,  if  not  altogether, 
destroying  the  chief  foundation  upon  which 
rests  the  existence  of  a  herd-instinct  in  man. 

Another  most  important  line  of  evidence 
in  favour  of  the  existence  of  a  herd-instinct 
in  man  is  derived  from  the  study  of  disease. 
In  many  forms  of  mental  disorder  there  is 
great  disturbance,  or  it  may  even  be  complete 
loss,  of  that  regard  for  the  opinion  of  the 
group  which  is  now  so  often  referred  to 
the  activity  of  a  herd-instinct.  Few  of  those 
who  have  dealt  with  pathological  states 
from  this  point  of  view,  however,  show  any 
signs  of  having  tried  to  distinguish  between 
instinctive  and  acquired  aspects  of  behaviour 
or  even  to  gain  an  elementary  understanding 
of  the  nature  of  instinct.  Thus,  a  recent 
writer  of  repute  believes  that  in  the  considera- 
tion of  instinct  in  relation  to  human  behaviour 
it  is  a  mistake  to  bring  into  the  argument 
issues  reached  by  the  study  of  the  behaviour 
of  the  lower  animals,  showing  that  he  has 
wholly  failed  to  understand  the  impossi- 
bility of  any  scientific  treatment  of  instinct 
if  the  biological  aspect  of  the  subject  is 
excluded. 

Perhaps  more  important  than  the  symptoms 
of  definite  disease  are  the  quasi-pathological 
manifestations  of  the  unorganised  body  of 
human  beings,  I  do  not  call  it  a  social  group, 

91 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

which  is  now  usually  known  as  the  crowd. 
Following  lyC  Bon  the  interest  of  social 
psychologists  has  been  largely  directed  to 
the  impulsive,  unregulated  behaviour  which 
is  characteristic  of  a  body  of  human  beings 
who,  under  the  stress  of  some  disturbing 
conditions,  act  in  common  without  the  dis- 
cipline which  prepares  the  activity  of  the 
more  organised  forms  of  social  grouping. 
The  liability  of  the  crowd  to  such  undis- 
criminated and  ungraduated  modes  of  be- 
haviour as  panic,  point  definitely  to  such 
behaviour  being  the  manifestation  of  deeply 
seated  instinctive  trends  which  are  normally 
held  in  check  by  more  recently  acquired 
activities  of  the  mind. 

I  must  be  content  with  this  sketch  of  what 
I  conceive  to  be  the  present  position  of  the 
subject.  In  this  brief  paper  I  have  first 
stated  what  I  could,  I  believe,  prove  to 
your  satisfaction  if  I  had  the  time,  that  human 
societies  vary  greatly  in  respect  of  socialistic 
and  individualistic  social  behaviour,  and  that 
some  are  just  as  closely  wedded  to  socialistic 
practices  as  we  are  to  individualism.  I 
have,  then,  considered  very  briefly,  indeed 
have  done  little  more  than  enumerate,  some 
of  the  lines  of  evidence  to  which  we  may  look 
for  the  solution  of  the  problems  raised  by 
these  differences  in  the  behaviour  of  human 
societies. 

Even  in  stating  these  problems  I  have  been 
92 


SOCIALISM  AND   HUMAN   NATURE 

obliged  to  consider  different  possibilities  which 
would  arise  after  making  certain  assumptions. 
Thus,  after  accepting  the  position  that  there 
is  an  instinct  of  acquisition  in  the  interest 
of  the  individual,  I  have  stated  different 
possibilities  concerning  the  fate  of  this  in- 
stinct among  those  peoples  whose  social 
system  is  definitely  socialistic.  As  I  have 
been  driven  to  state  the  complicated  problems 
which  are  involved,  the  whole  matter  bristles 
with  assumptions,  and  throughout  the  treat- 
ment "  possiblys  "  and  "  probablys  "  are 
scattered  in  profusion,  while  behind  all  one 
cannot  help  scenting  the  danger  due  to  the 
preconceptions  and  prejudices  inevitably 
aroused  when  such  a  subject  as  socialism 
is  the  topic  of  inquiry.  We  have  here  a 
subject  the  complexity  of  which  is  so  great 
that  it  should  certainly  appeal  to  the  members 
of  a  Critical  Society,  while  it  is  also  one 
which  raises  interesting  questions  of  scientific 
method. 


AN  ADDRESS   ON  EDUCATION 
AND  MENTAL  HYGIENE 


V 


AN  ADDRESS  ON  EDUCATION   AND 
MENXAI,  HYGIENE  * 

I  PROPOSE  in  what  I  say  to  you  to-day  to 
consider  certain  ways  in  which  knowledge 
of  the  theory  and  art  of  medicine  may  be 
of  service  to  the  student  of  education.  In 
recent  years  two  great  developments  have 
taken  place  in  medicine  which  bring  it  into 
much  closer  relations  with  education  than 
was  formerly  the  case.  One  of  these  is  the 
greatly  increased  attention  to  hygiene,  to 
prevention  rather  than  cure,  to  use  the  words 
of  the  old  adage;  while  the  other  great  develop- 
ment, one  especially  active  at  the  moment, 
is  the  application  to  disorders  of  the  mind 
of  principles  similar  to  those  which  have 
long  been  applied  to  disorders  of  the  body. 
I  will  begin  by  dealing  briefly  with  these 
two  developments.  The  state  of  disease  is 
one  which  must  have  made  a  great  impres- 
sion on  man  from  the  time  that  he  began  to 
be  aware  that  there  lay  in  his  hands  some 
degree    of    control    over    his    own    destiny. 

*  An  address  prepared  for  delivery  to  students  of  education. 

97  N 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

The  early  history  of  religion  and  magic 
probably  turned  largely  upon  man's  attitude 
towards  this  striking  vicissitude  of  his  career 
and  the  still  more  catastrophic  state  of 
death  to  which  it  so  often  led.  The  magic 
and  religion  of  existing  backward  races  of 
mankind  are  full  of  features  which  show  an 
intense  interest  in  disease,  but  as  a  rule  man 
was  content  to  wait  until  disease  presented 
itself  in  some  guise  or  other  before  he  took 
steps  to  avert  the  evil,  and  this  pre-eminence 
of  cure  over  prevention  continued  on  into  the 
Medicine  of  civilised  peoples.  It  is  only  in 
our  own  days  that  we  have  come  to  put  the 
prevention  of  disease  in  its  proper  place. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  when  the  history  of 
the  Medicine  of  to-day  comes  to  be  written, 
its  greatest  achievement  will  not  be  found 
in  the  operative  procedures,  the  antitoxins 
and  the  glandular  extracts  which  bulk  so 
largely  in  the  estimation  of  the  profession 
as  well  as  of  the  laity,  but  in  the  systematic 
development  of  the  public  health  service 
in  our  own  country  and  the  still  more  striking 
measures  by  which  the  tropical  regions  of 
the  earth  are  being  made  available  for  the 
service  of  mankind  in  general. 

The  other  great  development,  one  of  which 
I  think  we  can  be  proud  as  the  product  of 
our  generation,  is  the  recognition  that  dis- 
orders of  the  mind  are  capable  of  being  treated 
on  lines  very  similar  to  those  which  we  follow 

98 


EDUCATION  AND   MENTAL  HYGIENE 

when  dealing  with  the  body.  We  are  no 
longer  content,  as  was  the  case  until  quite 
recently,  to  wait  until  the  mind  has  fallen 
into  total  disorganisation,  or  has  departed 
so  widely  from  its  healthy  mode  of  working 
as  to  make  seclusion  necessary.  We  now 
recognise  that  mental  disease,  whether  in 
its  severer  or  slighter  forms,  is  the  outcome  of 
processes  following  definite  laws,  and  that 
by  knowledge  of  these  laws  the  sufferer  may 
again  be  set  upon  the  path  of  health. 

It  is  a  striking  fact,  and  one  which  I  intend 
to  make  the  central  point  of  what  I  have  to 
say  this  afternoon,  that  one  of  the  chief 
names  which  has  been  chosen  for  the  curative 
process  by  which  the  sufferer  is  thus  set 
upon  this  path  of  health  is  re-education. 
It  is  recognised  that  the  process  of  psycho- 
therapy by  which  mental  disorder  is  remedied 
is  one  in  which  the  therapeutic  process  is 
of  essentially  the  same  kind  as  that  by  which 
the  individual  is  normally  adapted  to  social 
life. 

It  is  a  commonplace,  expressed  in  the  adage 
that  outsiders  see  most  of  the  game,  that 
those  who  are  immersed  in  any  pursuit 
often  fail  to  see  tracks  and  openings  which 
are  at  once  apparent  to  one  who  comes  from 
elsewhere  and  views  the  scene  with  unpre- 
judiced eyes.  I  propose  to-day  to  consider 
one  or  two  lessons  of  psycho-therapy  and 
of  its  process  of  re-education  with  the  object  of 

99 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

asking  whether  they  may  be  of  value  to  those 
who  have  not  to  wait  until  the  mind  has 
fallen  into  disorder,  but  whose  function  it  is 
to  put  the  individual  from  the  beginning 
upon  a  track  which  will  lead  him  into  the 
path  of  health  and  keep  him  in  that  path. 

The  first  lesson  to  be  mentioned  which  has 
been  learnt  by  the  psychological  medicine 
of  to-day,  perhaps  the  most  important,  con- 
cerns the  vast  importance  of  the  influences 
which  are  brought  to  bear  upon  the  indivi- 
dual in  his  earliest  years.  We  are  no  longer 
content  to  adopt  the  pessimistic  attitude 
of  those  who  were  fed  on  the  old  views  of 
heredity,  but  we  are  coming  to  see  to  how 
great  an  extent  the  disorders  and  faulty 
trends  of  mental  life  are  the  result  of  wrong 
methods  of  treatment  in  the  years  when  the 
individual  is  painfully  learning  to  control 
the  instinctive  impulses  which  he  has  brought 
into  the  world  with  him  so  as  to  make  them 
compatible  with  the  traditions  and  ideals 
of  the  society  of  which  he  is  to  be  a  member. 
As  I  have  said  elsewhere,  childhood  is  the 
prolonged  scene  of  a  conflict  of  this  kind, 
and  the  outcome  of  the  conflict  depends 
largely  on  the  process  of  education  to  which 
you  are  all  about  to  devote  your  lives. 

Though  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  while 
we  can  be  confident  that  the  process  of  educa- 
tion, taken  in  its  broadest  sense,  largely 
determines  the  nature  of  the  result  of  the 

100 


EDUCATION  AND   MENTAL   HYGIENE 

conflict  between  instinctive  trends  and  social 
ideals  of  which  every  human  life  is  the  scene, 
it  is  at  present  far  more  difficult  to  say  with 
any  confidence  just  how  the  knowledge  de- 
rived from  psychological  medicine  points  the 
way  to  educational  method.  One  or  two 
lines,  however,  are  fairly  clear,  and  I  propose 
to-day  to  consider  briefiy  one  lesson  which 
can,  I  think,  be  utilised. 

In  order  to  make  this  line  clear  I  must  go 
back  a  little  and  consider  two  broad  lines 
upon  principles  underlying  the  methods  of 
psycho-therapy.  In  the  early  stages  of  psycho- 
logical medicine  the  chief  stress  was  laid  on 
suggestion,  of  which  hypnotism  was  the 
most  striking  form.  Faith  and  suggestion 
are  still  the  prominent  agencies  in  most  lines 
of  psycho-therapeutical  treatment.  It  is  alto- 
gether to  them  that  are  due  any  beneficial 
results  which  may  have  come  from  the  sensa- 
tional methods  of  Coue,  of  which  so  much 
has  been  recently  heard,  and  those  processes 
form  the  basis  of  much  of  the  treatment 
methods  practised  to-day.  It  is  now  one 
feature  of  these  two  processes  and  of  methods 
founded  upon  them  that  they  make  no  attempt 
to  reach  the  root  of  the  disorder,  in  the 
treatment  of  which  they  are  applied  ;  but 
their  advocates  are  content  to  treat  the  out- 
ward and  obvious  manifestations  usually  called 
symptoms. 

When  M.  Coue  tells  his  devotees  to  say  that 

lOI 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

their  pains  are  growing  less  and  their  appetite 
greater  every  day,  he  makes  no  attempt  to 
discover  the  causal  factors  upon  which  the 
pains  or  the  diminished  appetite  depend. 
Using  the  language  of  ordinary  medicine, 
the  treatment  is  purely  palliative.  The  main 
principle  of  modern  medicine,  that  if  symptoms 
only  are  treated  while  the  cause  of  the  symptoms 
is  left  untouched,  the  trouble  will  probably 
recur  sooner  or  later,  perhaps  even  in  far 
more  troublesome  guise  than  that  for  which 
the  palliative  remedies  were  originally  applied. 
The  second  main  line  of  treatment  is  that 
which  recognises  this  principle  and  makes 
it  its  chief  business  to  discover  the  nature  of 
disorder,  one  often  dating  back  for  many 
years,  through  whose  activity  the  symptoms 
are  produced.  Its  object  is  that  the  sufferer 
shall  come  to  understand  the  faulty  trends 
by  which  his  disorder  has  been  produced  and 
by  such  self-knowledge  shall  see  where  his 
life  has  left  the  normal  path  and  how  his 
steps  can  again  be  set  upon  the  path  of  health. 
It  is  this  process  which  is  denoted  when  the 
physician  speaks  of  the  process  of  re-education. 
I  wish  to-day  to  draw  your  attention  to  a 
difference  of  the  most  important  kind  between 
these  two  lines  of  treatment  of  disorders  of 
the  mind.  In  the  second  case  the  patient 
is  led  to  know  himself,  to  understand  the 
nature  of  the  process  by  which  his  life  has 
been  disturbed,  and  to  see  for  himself  how  he 

102 


EDUCATION  AND  MENTAL  HYGIENE 

can  overcome  the  difficulties  which  have  led 
him  away  from  health  and  sanity.  By  this 
process  he  learns  self,  not  only  to  understand 
and  foresee  conditions  which  may  again  lead 
him  astray,  but,  even  more  important,  he 
learns  to  be  self-reliant  and  confident  in  his 
own  strength  and  knowledge,  and  not  to 
lean  on  others.  In  the  methods  which  rely 
on  faith  and  suggestion,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  inevitably  produced  a  state  of  de- 
pendence, sometimes  dependence  on  another 
personality,  sometimes  dependence  on  some 
line  of  action  which  is  believed  to  have  an 
intrinsic  value  of  precisely  the  same  order  as 
that  which  gives  to  the  savage  his  faith  in 
the  magic  that  so  often  dominates  his  life. 

Now,  I  expect  by  this  time  you  will  all  see 
where  I  have  been  leading.  We  all  know  two 
kinds  of  teaching  and  two  kinds  of  teacher. 
There  is  the-  teacher  who  lays  down  the  law 
in  an  emphatic  tone  and  expects  to  be  believed 
with  such  assurance  that  his  expectations  are 
largely  realised.  He  succeeds  in  making  his 
pupils  replicas,  perhaps  even  successful  re- 
plicas of  himself  ;  and  since  a  teacher  of  this 
class  is  usually  one  who  would  be  hard  put 
to  defend  his  views  if  they  were  criticised, 
he  thus  tends  to  perpetuate  not  only  false 
attitude  towards  life  but  also  second-rate  or 
outworn  opinions. 

The  other  kind  of  teacher  is  he  who,  when 
putting  a  case,  gives  the  evidence  on  either 

103 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

side  as  impartially  as  he  can  and  leads  his 
pupils  to  see  how  opinions  are  formed.  He 
gives  them  strength  and  knowledge  to  deal 
with  the  many  difficult  situations  by  which 
they  must  sooner  or  later  be  confronted. 
Not  only  does  such  a  teacher  produce  the 
qualities  of  true  knowledge  and  self-reliance, 
but  he  puts  his  pupils  into  a  position  to  under- 
stand, if  not  to  originate,  solutions  of  the 
problems  which  are  continually  arising  in 
such  a  progressive  society  as  our  own. 

I  believe  that  the  two  cases  of  the  psycho- 
therapeutist  and  the  teacher  which  I  have 
cited  are  not  only  closely  if  not  exactly  par- 
allel in  their  methods,  but  there  is  the  further 
likeness  that  in  their  respective  walks  of  life 
one  path  is  far  easier  than  the  other  and  also 
more  attractive.  To  most  people,  whether 
they  be  physicians  or  teachers,  it  is  far  more 
attractive  to  be  looked  up  to  as  a  fountain 
of  wisdom  and  to  be  regarded  as  an  oracle 
than  to  run  the  danger  of  having  one's  views 
or  line  of  treatment  discredited  by  a  critical 
or  pupil  patient.  As  a  matter  of  fact  one 
meets  with  a  hundred  teachers  of  the  dog- 
matic and  dependent  kind  for  one  who  acts 
in  what  I  believe  to  be  the  higher  and  more 
promising  way.  I  shall  give  you  two  examples 
to  illustrate  the  kind  of  thing  I  mean.  Not 
long  ago  at  a  meeting  of  the  Psychological 
Society  my  friend  Dr  Myers  read  a  paper 
one  part  of  which  I  criticised.     There  was 

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EDUCATION  AND   MENTAL  HYGIENE 

present  a  well-known  medical  teacher  so 
distinguished  that  he  had  been  knighted, 
who  got  up  and  said  that  he  had  come  to 
the  meeting  expecting  to  be  instructed  by 
two  such  eminent  authorities  as  Myers  and 
myself,  and  that  he  had  been  horrified  at 
finding  that  instead  of  being  told  by  us 
what  was  the  truth  he  had  found  us  dis- 
agreeing with  one  another. 

The  other  example  is  that  of  a  well-known 
university  teacher  who,  in  my  presence,  was 
heard  objecting  to  Wells's  Outlines  of  History, 
because  he  gave  footnotes  which  disagreed 
with  the  text.  How  disturbing,  he  said,  it 
must  be  to  the  students'  mind  ! 

Now  it  is  evident  that  neither  of  these  two 
distinguished  men,  each  of  whom  had  given 
his  life  to  teaching,  had  even  a  glimmer  of 
understanding  of  the  fact  that  the  aim  of 
education  is  not  to  inspire  blind  confidence 
and  faith,  but  to  fit  men  and  women  to 
deal  with  the  situations  of  life,  and  especially 
with  those  situations  with  which  they  are 
confronted  as  members  of  a  society  so  com- 
plicated and  so  full  of  difficult  problems  as 
our  own.  It  is  the  attitude  of  such  men  that 
is  directly  responsible  for  the  credulity  with 
which  the  nation  swallows  the  arguments  and 
nostrums  of  a  Yellow  Press,  allows  itself  to 
be  swindled  by  the  unscrupulous  company 
promoters,  and  remains  incompetent  to  engage 
in  logical  argument  or  consistent  thought. 

105  o 


AN    ADDRESS    ON    "THE 
AIMS     OF    ETHNOLOGY' 


VI 

THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOI.OGY  * 

I  WANT  this  evening  to  tell  you  what  the 
science  of  ethnology  is  trying  to  do,  and  how- 
it  hopes  to  contribute  to  the  general  sum  of 
knowledge.  I  shall  also  speak  of  some  of 
its  needs  if  it  is  to  fulfil  these  aims. 

It  is  the  business  of  ethnology  to  study  the 
nature  of  the  different  groups,  whether  we 
call  them  nations,  tribes,  or  what  not,  into 
which  Man  has  come  to  be  divided.  Each  of 
these  groups,  even  the  simplest  tribe  of 
Australia  or  Tierra  del  Fuego,  has  a  complex 
character  and  shows  features  of  culture,  such 
as  language,  social  organisation,  religion,  arts 
and  crafts,  each  of  which  forms  a  special 
subject  of  study.  Some  of  these  studies, 
such  as  philology  and  sociology,  are  already 
advanced  enough  to  have  received  names, 
and  form  mental  disciplines  recognised  in 
the  universities  and  schools.     It  is  the  task 

*  This  lecture  was  originally  prepared  for  the  instruction  of 
students  of  anthropology  in  Cambridge,  but  during  the  last 
three  years  Dr  Rivers  had  delivered  it  in  many  universities  and 
schools  in  England  and  America. 

109 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

of  ethnology  to  study  these  subjects,  not  as 
abstract  isolated  branches  of  human  culture, 
but  to  consider  them  comprehensively  as 
manifestations  of  the  activities  of  groups  of 
mankind.  Its  special  aim  is  to  understand 
the  relation  of  these  groups  to  one  another, 
not  only  at  the  present  time,  but  in  the  past. 
It  is  its  business  to  discover  how  it  has  come 
about  that  man  presents  his  vast  diversity 
of  speech  and  thought  and  custom,  and  to 
find  the  explanation  of  the  many  points 
of  similarity  which  constantly  present  them- 
selves throughout  the  diversity.  I  can  per- 
haps best  illustrate  the  nature  and  aims  of 
the  science  by  a  brief  record  of  its  history,  a 
history  even  now  of  very  short  duration. 

So  long  as  it  was  universally  believed  that 
man  came  into  existence  by  a  special  act 
of  creation,  and  owed  his  diversity  of  speech 
and  custom  to  the  miracle  of  Babel,  there  was 
little  scope  for  a  science  of  ethnology.  It 
was  generally  held  in  the  past  that  the  more 
backward  peoples  of  the  earth,  or  rather 
those  whom  we  regard  as  backward  because 
they  are  different  from  ourselves,  were  so 
because  they  had  degenerated  from  the  state 
in  which  they  were  created.  Moreover,  when 
people  speculated  concerning  the  similarities 
and  diversities  of  human  culture,  it  is  easy 
to  understand  why  they  should  ascribe  the 
similarities  to  such  dispersals  as  tend  to 
follow    the    great    catastrophes    of    human 

no 


THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOLOGY 

history.  It  was  even  natural  that  such 
similarities  as  were  especially  familiar  through 
the  Biblical  record  should  be  ascribed  to  the 
dispersal  of  the  Jews.  The  frequent  behef 
in  the  widespread  influence  of  the  lost  Ten 
Tribes  was,  in  the  then  state  of  the  subject, 
a  legitimate  view  for  which  it  was  even  pos- 
sible to  provide  some  evidence. 

When  the  subject  began  to  be  studied 
about  fifty  years  ago  by  those  trained  in 
scientific  methods,  this  line  of  thought  was 
dominant,  and  the  work  of  the  writers  of 
that  time,  such  as  Meadows  Taylor,*  Lane- 
Fox,  f  Fergusson,{  Park  Harrison,  §  and  Miss 
Buckland,1[  was  guided  by  the  idea  that 
civilised  man  had  travelled  far  over  the 
world  and  that  the  similarities  found  in 
widely-separated  parts  of  the  earth  are  the 
outcome  of  the  diffusion  of  features  of  culture 
from  some  part  of  the  world,  the  special  con- 
ditions of  which  had  led  to  their  appearance 
and  development. 

*  Meadows  Taylor,  "  On  Prehistoric  Archseology  of  India," 
Journ.  Ethnol.  Soc,  New  Series,  vol.  i.,  1868-9. 

f  A.  Lane-Fox,  "  Remarks  on  Mr  Hodder  Westropp's  Paper 
on  Cromlechs,  with  a  Map  of  the  World,  showing  the  Distribution 
of  Megalithic  Monuments." 

X   Rude  Stone  Monuments,  London,  1872. 

§  "  On  the  Artificial  Enlargement  of  the  Earlobe,"  Journ. 
Anthropol.  Inst.,  vol.  ii.,  1872-3,  page  190. 

^  A.  W.  Buckland,  "  The  Serpent  in  Connection  with  Primitive 
Metallurgy,"  Journ.  Anthropol.  Inst.,  vol.  iv.,  1874-5.  Ibid., 
"  Ethnological  Hints  afforded  by  the  Stimulants  in  use  among 
Savages  and  among  the  Ancients,"  Journ.  Anthropol.  Inst., 
vol.  viii.,  1878-9.  Ibid.,  "  On  Tattooing,"  Journ.  Anthropol. 
Inst.,  vol.  xvii.,  1887-8. 

Ill 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

About  forty  years  ago  a  great  change  took 
place  in^the  opinions  of  those  who  devoted 
themselves  to  the  study  of  human  culture  and 
society.  The  idea  of  evolution,  which  was 
then  slowly  forging  its  way  into  general 
acceptance,  became  an  article  of  almost 
universal  belief  among  students  of  anthro- 
pology ;  and  as  the  result  of  a  misunder- 
standing of  what  exactly  biologists  meant  by 
evolution,  they  put  forward  the  remarkable 
claim  that,  after  an  original  dispersal,  which 
they  did  not  attempt  to  explain,  the  different 
varieties  of  mankind  had  developed  their 
cultures  independently.  They  accepted  the 
doctrine  of  the  German  traveller  and  ethnolo- 
gist, Adolf  Bastian,  that  the  similarities 
between  the  beliefs  and  customs  of  different 
peoples  are  due  to  the  uniformity  of  the 
constitution  of  the  human  mind,  so  that, 
given  similar  conditions  of  climate  and  con- 
ditions of  life,  the  same  modes  of  thought  and 
behaviour  come  into  existence  independently, 
which  are  in  no  way  due  to  the  influence  of  one 
people  upon  another.  When  I  began  the 
study  of  ethnology  twenty  years  ago  this 
point  of  view  had  become  absolutely  dominant, 
at  any  rate  in  this  country  and  America,  and  I 
accepted  it  without  question.  In  common 
with  others,  I  beHeved  in  the  doctrine  that 
similarities  of  thought  and  custom  through- 
out the  world  arose  through  similarity  of 
external  conditions,  and  ignored  the  obvious 

112 


THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOLOGY 

fact  that  the  similarities  are  found  amidst 
external  conditions  of  the  most  diverse  kind 
— in  islands  and  continents  ;  in  tropical  and 
in  temperate  climates  ;  among  agricultural, 
hunting,  and  pastoral  peoples ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  diversities  are  found  within 
regions  uniform  in  climate  and  social  habit, 
while  in  many  parts  of  the  earth  diversities 
of  the  most  striking  kind  are  found  within 
a  region  only  a  few  square  miles  in 
size. 

It  may  be  instructive  to  consider  for  a 
moment  one  or  two  considerations  which 
greatly  contributed  to  strengthen  the  belief 
in  independent  origin.  One  was  the  absence 
or  very  imperfect  character  of  the  means  of 
navigation  in  parts  of  the  world  where,  if 
there  had  been  external  influence  at  all  this 
must  have  come  by  sea.  Thus,  the  idea  that 
no  influence  can  have  reached  America  across 
the  Pacific  Ocean  seemed  to  receive  support 
from  the  absence  of  any  but  the  rudest  forms 
of  sea-craft  along  the  whole  of  the  western 
shore  of  the  continent.  This  was  put  for- 
ward as  a  cogent  piece  of  evidence  that  the 
great  Inca  culture  of  Peru,  with  its  very 
advanced  character,  and  in  spite  of  its  many 
points  of  close  resemblance  with  cultures 
of  the  Old  World,  was  nevertheless  the  inde- 
pendent outcome  of  the  fertility  and  ingenuity 
of  mind  of  the  indigenous  inhabitants  of 
America.     It   was   only   necessary   to   show, 

113  p 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

as  I  was  able  to  do,*  that  there  are  well- 
estabhshed  cases,  even  among  the  inhabitants 
of  islands,  where  the  art  of  navigation  has 
once  existed  and  has  disappeared.  If  the 
inhabitants  of  islands  can  give  up  an  industry 
which  would  seem  to  be  essential  to  their 
welfare,  there  is  no  great  difficulty  in  assum- 
ing the  degeneration  or  even  disappearance 
of  the  art  of  navigation  among  the  inhabitants 
of  the  coasts  of  a  continent. 

This  special  case  is  only  one  example  of  the 
neglect  of  the  factor  of  degeneration  in  human 
culture.  So  long  as  students  were  under  the 
influence  of  the  idea  of  special  creacion, 
degeneration  was  the  chief  agency  by  which 
features  of  human  culture  were  explained, 
but  with  the  incoming  of  the  idea  of  evolution 
this  factor  was  thrown  wholly  on  one  side, 
or  was  used  only  to  explain  relatively  un- 
important facts.  There  was  a  complete  failure 
to  appreciate  the  vast  part  which  degeneration 
is  continually  playing  in  the  history  of  human 
institutions. 

It  may  be  noted  at  this  point  that,  though 
Germany  must  be  regarded  as  the  home  of  the 
idea  of  independent  origin,  there  has  never 
been  the  unanimity  of  acceptance  of  the 
doctrine  in  that  country  which  was  at  one 
time  present  here  and  in  America.  Ratzel, 
the  author  of  a  large  popular  work  on  the 

*  "  The  Disappearance  of  Useful  Arts,"  Festskrift  t.  Edvard 
Westermarck,  Helsingfors,  1912,  page  109. 

114 


THE  AIMS   OF  ETHNOLOGY 

Early  History  of  Mankind,  was  an  advocate 
of  the  view  that  similarities  of  culture  are 
due  to  transmission  from  some  centre  of 
origin,  and  during  the  early  years  of  the  pre- 
sent century  a  school  grew  up  in  Germany,  of 
which  Graebner  *  and  Ankermann  f  were  the 
most  important  members,  which  attempted 
to  formulate  a  definite  scheme  of  a  succession 
of  cultures  which  had  spread  over  the  world 
and  produced  the  wide  distribution  of  many 
elements  of  culture.  This  work  was  almost 
completely  disregarded  in  this  country,  and 
the  movement  which  has  taken  place  here  in 
favour  of  transmission  as  the  source  of 
similarities  of  human  culture  has  been  inde- 
pendently worked  out  during  the  last  ten 
years  on  lines  wholly  different  from  those  of 
the  German  ethnologists. 

In  describing  this  movement  it  will  be  best 
to  begin  with  the  work  of  BUiot  Smith. 
In  the  course  of  anatomical  investigation 
of  a  large  number  of  mummies  from  many 
different  periods  of  Egyptian  history,  it 
became  evident  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
third  millennium  B.C.  there  had  been  an 
invasion  of  people  from  the  north  with  heads 
somewhat   rounder   than   those   of   the   pre- 

*  "  Kulturkreise  u.  Kulturschichten  in  Ozeanien,"  Zeitschv.  f. 
EthnoL,  xxxvii.,  1905,  page  39  ;  "  Die  melanesische  Bogen- 
kultur  u.  ihre  Verwandten, "  Anthropos,  iv.,  1909,  page  726  and 
O.  998. 

f  "  Kulturkreise  u.  Kulturschichten  in  Afrika,"  Zeitschr.  f. 
EthnoL,  xxxvii.,  1905,  page  54. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

dynastic  inhabitants  of  the  country,  and  with 
features  of  the  skull  of  the  kind  now  usually 
known  as  Armenoid.*  When  KUiot  Smith 
returned  to  England  he  found  that  skulls 
of  the  same  type  as  those  which  had  made 
their  way  into  Egypt  from  the  north  were 
numerous  in  Europe,  including  these  islands, 
but  at  first  no  evidence  presented  itself  to 
his  notice  in  favour  of  a  wider  distribution. 
On  coming  to  Cambridge  to  examine,  how- 
ever, in  191 1,  Elliot  Smith  found  skulls 
with  definite  Armenoid  characters  among 
those  put  out  to  test  the  candidates.  These 
skulls  had  once  belonged  to  natives  of  the 
Chatham  Islands,  south  of  New  Zealand, 
a  place  almost  as  remote  from  Egypt  or 
Armenia  as  could  well  be  found.  Being  thus 
led  to  entertain  the  idea  of  extensive  move- 
ments of  early  man  about  the  earth,  Elliot 
Smith  studied  the  distribution  of  certain 
features  of  culture,  such  as  mummification 
and  megalithic  architecture,  in  which  he  had 
become  interested  during  his  stay  in  Egypt. 
He  found  features  of  distribution  which  led 
him  to  believe  that  these  two  manifestations 
of  human  activity  had  arisen  in  Egypt  and 
spread  therefrom  to  the  many  parts  of  the 
earth  where  they  are  now  found,  f  The 
distribution  of  megalithic  monuments  especi- 

*  The  Ancient  Egyptians  and  Their  Influence  upon  the  Civilisa- 
tion of  Europe,  London,  191 1,  page  95. 

f    The  Migrations  of  Early  Culture,  Manchester,  191 5. 
116 


THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOLOGY 

ally  pointed  to  their  builders  having  travelled 
in  the  main  by  sea,*  so  that  the  nature  of 
the  means  of  navigation  became  of  great 
importance.  It  was  at  this  stage  that  I  was 
able  to  contribute  by  showing,  as  I  have 
already  mentioned,  that  even  so  essential 
an  art  as  navigation  is  not  immune  from  the 
process  of  degeneration. 

About  the  time  that  Elliot  Smith  was 
engaged  in  working  out  the  evidence  for  the 
world-wide  spread  of  mummification  and 
megalithic  architecture,  I  was  studying 
material  brought  back  from  an  expedition  to 
Melanesia  in  1908. |  This  study  led  me  to 
the  view  that  Melanesian  culture  could  only 
be  explained  on  the  supposition  that  there 
had  been  a  succession  of  intruding  peoples, 
one  of  which  had  brought  with  it  the  practice 
of  preserving  the  dead  and  the  making  of 
megalithic  monuments.  I  made  it  my  busi- 
ness to  try  to  ascertain  the  kind  of  process 
which  takes  place  when  such  elements  of 
culture  from  outside,  perhaps  of  a  relatively 
advanced  order,  are  introduced  among  so 
rude  a  people  as  the  Melanesians.  I  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  most  of  the  social  practices 
of  Melanesia  are  the  result  of  the  interaction 
between  the  beliefs   and  customs   of  immi- 

*  See  W.  H.  R.  Rivers,  "  The  Contact  of  Peoples,"  Essays 
and  Studies  presented  to  William  Ridgeway,  Cambridge,  1913, 
page  489. 

t  Rep.  Brit.  Assoc,  Portsmouth,  191 1,  page  490  ;  The  History 
of  Melanesian  Society,  Cambridge,  1914. 

117 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

grant  and  indigenous  peoples  ;  that  when  a 
strange  custom  brought  by  an  immigrant 
people  so  takes  the  fancy  of  the  indigenous 
population  that  they  adopt  it  as  their  own, 
it  suffers  great  modification,  sometimes  in 
the  direction  of  development,  and  sometimes 
of  such  a  kind  that  we  can  only  regard  the 
result  as  degeneration.  I  was  led  to  the 
view  that  the  current  concept  of  independent 
evolution,  which  I  had  accepted  so  blindly, 
was  a  fiction.  The  evidence  from  Melanesia 
points  to  advance  as  taking  place  only  under 
external  influence,  and  to  a  mode  of  develop- 
ment in  which  isolation  spells  stagnation. 
It  suggests  that  an  isolated  people  do  not 
invent  or  advance,  but  that  the  introduction 
of  new  ideas,  new  instruments,  and  new 
techniques  leads  to  a  definite  process  of 
evolution,  the  products  of  which  may  differ 
greatly  from  either  the  indigenous  or  the 
immigrant  constituents,  the  result  of  the 
interaction  thus  resembling  a  chemical  com- 
pound rather  than  a  physical  mixture.  The 
study  of  Melanesian  culture  suggests  that 
when  this  newly  set  up  process  of  evolution 
has  reached  a  certain  pitch  it  comes  to  an 
end,  and  is  followed  by  a  period  of  stagnation 
which  endures  until  some  fresh  incoming  of 
external  influence  starts  anew  a  period  of 
progress. 

In  working  out  our  schemes  of  transmission 
and  evolution,  Elliot  Smith  and  I  were  met  by 

ii8 


THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOLOGY 

two  serious  difficulties,  one  of  a  more  special, 
the  other  of  a  more  general  kind.  Both  of 
these  difficulties  have  been  surmounted 
through  the  work  of  W.  J.  Perry.  The  more 
special  difficulty  is  concerned  with  the  dis- 
tribution of  megalithic  monuments,  which 
forms  so  excellent  a  touchstone  of  the  rival 
views.  Elliot  Smith  and  I  found  definite 
reason  to  believe  that  the  megalithic  art, 
together  with  a  cult  of  the  sun,  had  found 
their  way  from  Europe  or  Asia  into  Oceania,* 
and  passing  still  farther  across  the  Pacific 
had  influenced  the  culture  of  America,  and 
especially  of  Peru.  In  going  from  India  to 
Oceania  the  mariners  who  carried  the  art 
of  building  these  rude  stone  monuments 
must  have  passed  through  the  East  Indian, 
or,  as  it  is  often  called,  the  Malay  Archipelago. 
If  our  views  are  to  hold  good,  there  should 
be  evidence  of  their  handiwork  in  the  islands 
of  this  region.  Such  evidence  was  generally 
believed  to  be  absent,  and  this  supposed 
absence  had  so  impressed  one  advocate  of 
the  unity  of  the  megalithic  culture.  Professor 
J.  Macmillan  Brown,  of  New  Zealand, f  that 
he  advanced  the  view  that  the  culture  had 
spread  across  the  continent  of  Asia,  and  had 
then  reached  the  islands  of  the  Pacific  by 
way  of  Japan.     Mr  Perry  undertook  a  com- 

*  G.  Elliot  Smith,  op.  cit.  ;  W.  H.  R.  Rivers,  "  Sun-cult  and 
Megaliths  in  Oceania,"  American  Anthropologist  (N.S.),  vol.  xvii., 
1915,  page  431. 

f  Maori  and  Polynesian,  London,  1907. 

119 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

plete  survey  of  the  Indonesian  evidence.* 
He  found,  in  the  first  place,  that  in  certain 
islands  of  the  Bast  Indian  Archipelago,  especi- 
ally in  Sumba,  there  were  monuments,  in 
the  form  of  dolmens,  closely  resembling  those 
of  other  parts  of  the  world,  but  that  these 
had  a  more  limited  distribution  than  we 
should  expect  if  this  archipelago  had  been 
the  pathway  of  the  carriers  of  the  mega- 
lithic  culture.  He  therefore  turned  his  atten- 
tion to  the  distribution  of  stone-work  in 
general  in  Indonesia,  and  found  a  remarkable 
correspondence  between  it  and  certain  other 
elements  of  culture,  the  general  distribution  of 
which  had  led  Elliot  Smith  to  connect  them 
with  the  megalithic  art.  Perry  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  megalithic  monuments  were 
few  in  Indonesia,  because  the  culture  of  their 
makers  had  suffered  great  modification  in 
this  region,  so  that  the  art  of  stone-working, 
which  elsewhere  had  expended  itself  in  monu- 
ments of  vast  size,  had  been  here  content  to 
make  stone  seats  and  stone  offering  places, 
and  to  use  stone  in  the  construction  of  graves. 
It  is  possible  that  a  larger  number  of  definitely 
megalithic  remains  may  yet  be  found  in 
Indonesia,  but  in  the  meantime  Perry  has 
shown  reason  to  believe  that  their  scarcity 
is  due  to  some  conditions  which  led  people, 
attaching  great  importance  to  the  use  of 
stone    in    their    religious    rites,    to    practise 

*   The  Megalithic  Culture  of  Indonesia,  Manchester,  191 8. 
120 


THE  AIMS   OF  ETHNOLOGY 

their  art  in  a  more  modest  fashion  than  in 
their  original  home,  and  even  more  modest 
than  in  regions  farther  to  the  east. 

The  other  contribution  made  by  Perry  is 
of  still  greater  importance.  When  the  facts 
began  to  lead  us  to  the  view  that  in  remote 
ages  man  had  undertaken  voyages  to  the  most 
distant  parts  of  the  earth,  it  was  difficult 
to  see  what  could  have  acted  as  his  motive. 
About  this  time  geologists  and  archaeologists 
had  put  forward  the  view  that  there  had 
been  a  periodical  drying  up  of  Asia,  and 
Huntington  especially  had  written  about  it 
under  the  metaphorical  title.  The  Pulse  of 
Asia*  Such  a  drying  up  would  have  led 
to  a  great  displacement  of  population,  a 
displacement  to  which  silent  witness  is  borne 
by  the  large  and  once  populous  cities  now 
buried  in  the  sands  of  the  central  Asiatic 
desert. 

Believers  in  the  wide  movements  of  man 
throughout  the  world  were  inclined  to  ascribe 
his  early  migrations  to  the  need  for  home 
and  food,  brought  into  existence  by  the 
desolation  of  a  region  which  must  have 
housed  and  fed  vast  numbers  of  people. 
Such  a  need  might  account  for  pressure  of 
population  in  other  parts  of  Asia,  or  even  for 
movements  such  as  we  know  to  have  taken 
place  eastwards  to  the  Malay  Archipelago, 
and   westwards   into   Africa.     It   is   difficult 

*  London,  1907. 

121  Q 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

to  see,  however,  how  any  pressure  of  popula- 
tion in  Asia  can  have  produced  movements 
which  led  men  as  far  afield  as  the  islands  of 
the  Pacific  and  the  continent  of  America. 

However  remote  the  age  with  which  we 
are  dealing,  it  is  always  useful  to  look  at 
home  for  the  clue  to  motives  which  have 
guided  the  behaviour  of  man.  If  we  had  done 
this,  we  should  not  have  been  so  long  in 
discovering  the  motives  of  the  megalithic 
wandering.  It  was  reserved  for  Perry  to 
find  this  motive.  Elliot  Smith  had,  at  the 
beginning  of  1915,  mapped  out  the  areas  which 
he  knew,  or  inferred,  to  have  been  the  seats 
of  megalithic  influence.  He  sent  Perry  a 
copy  of  this  map.  About  the  same  time  he 
informed  him  that  Mrs  Zelia  Nuttall  had 
claimed  that  the  founders  of  American  civil- 
isation had  shown  a  special  appreciation  of 
pearls  and  precious  metals.  A  chance  ex- 
amination of  an  economic  atlas  enabled 
Perry  to  combine  these  two  items  of  informa- 
tion, for  he  saw  that  the  distribution  of  pearl- 
shell  in  the  Pacific  Ocean  agreed  so  nearly 
with  Elliot  Smith's  megalithic  areas  that  the 
presence  of  pearls  would  provide  a  sufiicient 
motive  for  the  settlements  in  these  regions. 
Further  examination  showed  that,  in  inland 
areas,  the  chief  motive  for  the  megalithic 
settlements  was  supplied  by  the  presence  of 
gold  and  other  forms  of  wealth.  He  therefore 
put  forward  the  view  that  the  motive  which 

122 


THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOLOGY 

had  led  the  ancient  voyagers  so  far  afield 
was  precisely  that  which  acts  as  the  essential 
stimulus  to  our  own  migrations,  viz.,  the 
search  for  objects  needed  to  satisfy  human 
needs,  material,  aesthetic  and  religious.*  In 
our  own  case  it  is  chiefly  the  satisfaction  of 
material  needs  which  has  led  us  to  the  far- 
distant  regions  of  the  earth,  though  the  extent 
of  the  missionary  movement  and  the  great  part 
taken  by  this  movement  in  the  spread  of  our 
culture  show  that  material  needs  have  not 
stood  alone.  In  the  earlier  movements  of 
mankind  it  is  probable  that  needs  of  a  religious 
kind,  or,  at  any  rate,  of  a  less  material  kind, 
were  more  prominent,  and  that  even  such  an 
object  as  gold  was  sought  because  of  its 
supposed  magical  or  religious  properties  long 
before  it  became  the  vehicle  of  currency. 
It  is  probable  that  one  of  the  earliest  motives 
which  led  men  widely  about  the  world  was 
the  search  for  an  elixir  of  life  by  which  to 
restore  youth  and  prolong  human  existence,  f 
As  might  be  expected,  it  has  been  found 
that  the  correspondence  between  the  distribu- 
tion of  gold  workings  and  megalithic  monu- 
ments is  not  exact,  but  where  such  stone 
structures  occur  dissociated  from  gold  there 
are  usually  other  objects  of  wealth  which 
wovdd  have  acted  as  the  motives  for  settle- 

*  "  The  Relationship  between  the  Geographical  Distribution 
of  Megalithic  Monuments  and  Ancient  Mines,"  Mem.  and  Proc. 
Manchester  Lit.  and  Phil.  Soc,  191 5. 

t  G.  Elliot  Smith,  TheEvolution  of  the  Dragon,  Manchester,  1919. 

123 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

ment.  Thus,  round  the  shores  of  the  Baltic, 
where  megalithic  monuments  abound  but 
gold  is  absent,  there  is  the  amber,  which, 
through  its  supposed  religious  or  magical 
properties,  had  so  great  an  attraction  for 
man  in  early  times  that  the  ancient  trade  in 
amber  between  the  north  and  south  of  Kurope 
continued  far  into  the  Middle  Ages. 

In  other  parts  of  the  world,  such  as  the 
shores  of  Southern  India  and  in  some  parts 
of  the  Pacific,  it  would  seem,  as  has  been 
said,  that  pearls  and  pearl-shell  were  the 
attraction,  while  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  elsewhere  spices  and  odorous  resins, 
needed  to  embalm  the  dead,  were  among  the 
objects  sought  by  these  ancient  explorers 
of  the  seven  seas.  Mr  Perry  is  now  engaged 
in  the  more  minute  comparison  of  the  dis- 
tribution of  gold  working  with  that  of  mega- 
lithic monuments  and  of  other  elements  of 
culture,  such  as  terraced  irrigation,  which  are 
associated  with  them. 

He  will  be  much  encouraged  in  his  quest 
by  recent  *  work  in  a  field  which  would 
seem  at  first  sight  a  most  unlikely  region  to 
furnish  confirmation  of  his  hypothesis.  In 
New  Guinea,  perhaps  the  least  known  and 
wildest  of  all  the  larger  regions  of  the  world, 
various  objects  in  stone  have  been  found, f 

*  This  lecture  was  written  in  191 9. 

•f  C.  G.  Seligmann  and  T.  A.  Joyce,  "  On  Primitive  Objects  in 
British  New  Guinea,"  Anthropological  Essays  presented  to  Edward 
Burnett  Tylor,  Oxford,  1907,  page  325. 

124 


THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOLOGY 

often  buried  away  feet  below  the  surface 
of  the  ground,  mortars  and  pestles  being 
especially  prominent  among  the  objects  so 
found.  The  present  natives  disclaim  all  know- 
ledge of  the  art  by  which  such  objects  were 
made,  and  ascribe  their  manufacture  to  a 
people  who  long  ago  came  and  settled  among 
them.  Lieut.  Chinnery,  to  whom  we  owe 
much  of  our  knowledge  of  these  objects  and 
of  the  beliefs  of  the  natives  about  them,* 
has  pointed  out  that  these  examples  of  native 
stone-work  have  been  found  chiefly  on  gold- 
bearing  districts,  and  that  in  some  cases 
there  are  stone-circles  or  other  forms  of 
ancient  stone-work  in  the  neighbourhood. 
Mr  Chinnery  has  suggested  that  the  pestles 
and  mortars  were  used  by  their  makers  to 
crush  the  quartz  from  which  they  extracted 
the  precious  substance  in  the  quest  of  which 
they  had  ventured  so  far  afield. 

Now  that  accumulating  evidence  is  point- 
ing so  clearly  to  early  voyages  comparable, 
both  in  motive  and  extent,  with  those  of 
our  own  epoch,  we  are  naturally  beginning 
to  speculate  about  the  original  home  of  the 
culture  which  was  thus  diffused,  about  the 
race  of  the  voyagers,  and  about  the  date  at 
which  the  voyages  occurred.  Of  these  three 
problems,  that  which  is  most  open  to  in- 
vestigation, and  is  at  the  same  time  essential 

*  "  stone-work    and    Goldfields    in    British    New    Guinea," 
Journ.  Roy.  Anthropol.  Inst.,  vol.  xlix.,  1919,  page  271. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

to  the  solution  of  the  other  two,  is  the  centre 
from  which  such  practices  as  megalithic  archi- 
tecture, sun-cult,  mummification  of  the  dead, 
and  irrigation  were  diffused. 

From  the  beginning  of  his  work  BUiot 
Smith  has  insisted,  in  the  face  of  bitter 
opposition  and  even  obloquy,  that  this  original 
home  was  Egypt.  He  believed  that  the 
geographical  features  of  this  country  furnish 
just  such  conditions  as  were  needed  to  bring 
into  existence  the  practices  which  have  been 
so  widely  diffused.  Thus,  to  take  mummifica- 
tion as  an  example,  we  know  that  the  special 
character  of  the  soil  of  Egypt  preserved  so 
completely  for  thousands  of  years  the  bodies 
of  the  dead  pre-dynastic  Egyptians  who  were 
interred  in  the  contracted  position,  that 
Elliot  Smith  has  been  able  to  study  the 
structure  even  of  so  perishable  an  organ  as 
the  brain.*  When  the  idea  arose  of  placing 
the  bodies  of  the  dead  in  rock-cut  tombs, 
or  in  structures  representing  the  house,  there 
would  no  longer  be  the  close  contact  of  the 
body  with  the  soil  which  was  essential  to 
this  preservation,  and  some  kind  of  artificial 
process    became    necessary    to    prevent    the 

*  Journ.  of  Anat.  and  Physiol.,  vol.  xxxvi.,  1902,  page  375. 

[It  was  Dr  Rivers  himself  who,  in  1900,  first  called  my  attention 
to  the  preservation  of  the  brain  in  pre-dynastic  Egyptian  bodies, 
and  thus  incidentally  introduced  me  to  anthropological  investiga- 
tion. At  the  time  he  was  working  at  the  problems  of  colour 
vision  of  the  natives  in  Upper  Egypt,  and  happened  to  see 
desiccated  brains  in  the  skulls  brought  to  light  there  by  Dr 
Randall-Maclver.— G.  E.  S.] 

126 


THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOLOGY 

natural  decay.  Thus  was  started  a  process 
by  the  development  of  which  arose  the  prac- 
tice of  mummification  of  the  dead,  the  full 
history  of  which  in  Egypt  has  been  worked 
out  by  Elliot  Smith.*  During  a  visit  to 
Australia  just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war, 
he  had  an  opportunity  of  examining  a  mummy 
from  the  islands  of  Torres  Straits,  between 
Australia  and  New  Guinea,  and  found  that 
when  preserving  their  dead  the  inhabitants 
of  these  islands  made  incisions  in  the  flank 
or  perineum,  and  sutured  the  wounds  so 
made  in  just  the  same  places  and  manner 
as  were  customary  at  a  certain  period  of 
Egyptian  history.  Moreover,  they  extracted 
the  brain  substance  through  the  foramen 
magnum,  and  made  incisions  on  the  extremi- 
ties just  as  was  done  in  Egypt  at  this  period. f 
This  correspondence  in  the  details  of  an 
art  is  of  great  importance  as  evidence  of 
transmission,  for  it  is  difficult  to  explain  it 
on  any  hypothesis  other  than  that  the  art 
spread  from  one  place  to  the  other.  The 
old  view  that  these  details  were  discovered 
independently  in  Torres  Straits  would  make  it 
necessary  to. believe  that,  in  a  climate  where 
decomposition  of  the  dead  sets  in  a  few  hours 
after  death,  the  rude  savages  of  Torres 
Straits  discovered  a  technique  which  cost  the 

*  See  references  in   The  Migrations  of  Early  Culture,  pages 
141-2. 

t   The  Migrations  of  Early  Culture,  page  21. 

127 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

highly  cultured  Egyptian  of  dynastic  times 
many  centuries  of  patient  trial  and  research. 

Elliot  Smith  had  already  shown  *  that  the 
dolmens  found  in  different  parts  of  Europe 
have  details  of  structure  which  point  to 
their  derivation  from  the  mast  aba,  the  original 
flat-topped  superstructure  of  the  Egyptian 
tomb  of  the  Pyramid  age.  At  one  end  of 
many  dolmens  there  is  a  stone  with  a  hole 
in  it,  and  Elliot  Smith  believes  that  this 
represents  the  opening  in  the  front  of  the 
mastaba  through  which  food  was  passed  to 
feed  the  dead  lying  within,  while  a  structure 
which  may  be  called  the  antechapel  of  the 
mastaba  is  often,  though  vaguely,  repre- 
sented in  dolmens  in  front  of  the  holed  stone. 
Again,  in  Egypt  the  sun  has  an  important 
place  in  the  culture  of  the  kings  who  made  the 
great  Pyramids  of  Egypt,  and  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  insist  on  reasons  why  Egypt  was  the 
birthplace  of  irrigation.  Geographical  and 
climatic  conditions  made  the  association  of 
these  four  practices  natural  in  Egypt.  If 
the  culture  of  which  they  form  part  was  carried 
about  the  world  it  will  explain  the  presence  of 
this  association  in  regions  where  it  is  impos- 
sible to  find  any  adequate  motive  for  their 
origin  by  a  process  of  independent  evolution. 

As  I  have  already  said,  the  view  of  Elliot 

*  "  The  Evolution  of  the  Rock-cut  Tomb  and  the  Dolmen," 
Essays  and  Studies  presented  to  William  Ridgeway,  Cambridge, 
1913,  page  493- 

128 


THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOLOGY 

Smith  that  Eg5^t  was  the  original  home  of  the 
megalithic  culture  has  met  with  the  most 
bitter  opposition,  but  every  year  is  tending  to 
confirm  its  truth.  The  Rev.  C.  B.  Fox,  a 
missionary  in  the  Solomon  Islands,  has, 
during  the  last  few  months,*  sent  us  an 
account  of  the  burial  customs  of  the  people  of 
San  Cristoval  and  other  neighbouring  islands 
in  that  region.  He  tells  us  that  the  dead  of 
the  chiefly  clan,  called  the  Araha,  were 
buried  on  the  top  of  mounds,  made  sometimes 
of  stone,  sometimes  of  earth.  These  mounds 
often  tend  to  be  pyramidal  in  shape,  and  in 
this  case  resemble  almost  exactly  the  flat- 
topped  mastaba  of  Egypt.  The  body  of 
the  dead  chief  is  placed  in  a  recess  within  the 
mound,  and  a  shaft  leads  from  the  surface 
of  the  mound  to  this  recess,  exactly  as  in 
the  mastaba  and  pyramids  of  Egypt.  On  the 
top  of  the  mound  of  San  Cristoval  there  is 
often  a  structure  composed  of  a  table  stone 
resting  on  three  or  four  uprights,  having 
thus  the  characteristic  form  of  a  dolmen. 
Under  or  by  this  dolmen  is  an  image  in 
human  form,  carved  out  of  coral  or  stone, 
which  is  believed  to  represent  the  dead  man 
and  to  act  as  the  abiding-place  of  the  ghost 
which  left  his  body  at  his  death.  Not  only 
does  this  image  reproduce  exactly  one  of  the 
most  characteristic  features  of  the  mortuary 
customs   of  the   ancient  Egyptian,   but  Mr 

*  This  refers  to  1919. 

129  R 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

Fox  draws  our  attention  to  a  special  feature 
of  the  statues  of  San  Cristoval  which  presents 
a  most  striking  resemblance  in  point  of  detail 
with  those  of  Egypt.  The  statues  are  seated, 
and  at  the  back  of  the  head  there  is  a  structure 
like  a  pig-tail  which  reaches  down  to  the 
stone  surface  upon  which  the  statue  is  placed. 
Mr  Fox  writes  to  ask  what  this  strange  feature, 
quite  unlike  any  existing  head-dress  of  Mel- 
anesia, can  mean,  unaware  that  he  is  describ- 
ing an  almost  exact  representation  of  a 
similar  feature  of  the  statues  of  Cheops, 
Chephren,  and  Mycerinus,  the  builders  of  the 
great  Pyramids  of  Egypt. 

One  more  detail.  On  the  back  of  the 
Egyptian  statues  there  is  usually  the  repre- 
sentation of  a  falcon  (often  called  an  eagle 
or  hawk).  In  San  Cristoval  the  chiefs  of  the 
Araha  whose  bodies  are  buried  in  the  flat- 
topped  mounds  have  the  eagle  as  their  totem. 

Moreover,  the  preservation  of  the  bodies 
which  are  buried  in  these  tombs  is  assisted 
by  removing  the  abdominal  viscera  through 
an  incision  in  the  flank,  exactly  as  was  done 
in  ancient  Egypt.  The  resemblance  between 
the  mortuary  customs  of  ancient  Egypt  and 
modern  San  Cristoval,  so  close  and  extending 
to  so  many  points  of  detail,  makes  it  incredible 
that  they  should  have  arisen  independently 
in  these  two  regions.  We  can  be  confident 
that  mariners  imbued  with  the  culture  of 
Egypt,  if  they  were  not  themselves  Egyptians, 

1^0 


THE  AIMS   OF  ETHNOLOGY 

reached  the  Solomon  Islands  in  their  search 
for  wealth,  and  that  their  funeral  rites  so 
impressed  the  people  of  these  far-distant 
isles  that  they  have  persisted  to  this  day. 

It  is  a  striking  fact  that  the  Solomon  Islands 
were  so  named  by  the  Spanish  explorers  of 
the  sixteenth  century  who,  having  subdued 
the  people  of  Central  America,  set  out  on 
further  voyages  of  exploration  across  the 
Pacific,  in  order  to  discover  the  countries 
from  which  King  Solomon  obtained  the  gold 
and  precious  stones  and  timbers  for  the 
building  of  the  temple.  Finding  these  islands 
after  their  long  voyage  across  the  Pacific, 
they  named  them  after  the  monarch  whose 
enterprise  they  were  seeking  to  emulate. 
After  this  brief  visit  of  the  Spaniards,  the 
islands  again  passed  out  of  our  ken  until 
the  last  century,  and  now  we  learn  that  the 
Spanish  voyagers  were  somewhere  near  the 
truth  when  they  named  the  islands  after  the 
Hebrew  king,  and  that  this  region  had  indeed 
been  reached,  not  by  King  Solomon's  mariners, 
but  by  voyagers  from  one  or  other  of  the  early 
civilisations  of  the  Orient.  Which  of  these 
civilisations  furnished  the  home  of  these 
early  wanderers  it  is  not  at  present  possible 
to  say,  but  it  may  be  of  interest  to  dwell  for 
a  moment  on  the  problem  of  the  date  at  which 
the  wanderings  occurred.  I  must  in  the  first 
place  note  that  Egyptian  history  provides  us 
with  our  instruments  for  the  dating  of  all 

131 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

the  early  civilisations  of  the  world.  If  the 
culture  of  so  remote  and  savage  a  region 
as  the  Solomon  Islands  has  been  influenced 
by  Egypt,  it  may  be  possible  by  the  nature  of 
this  influence  to  tell  at  the  least  when  the 
early  travellers  set  out  upon  the  journey  by 
which  they  were  to-  plant  their  culture  in 
such  distant  countries.  Just  as  we  now  date  a 
stratum  of  the  remains  of  Cnossos  by  a  sherd 
of  Egyptian  pottery,  or  a  building  of  Palestine 
or  Elam  by  the  discovery  of  an  Egyptian 
scarab,  so  may  we  hope  to  give  an  approximate 
date  to  customs  or  institutions  of  Melanesia 
or  aboriginal  America  by  the  discovery  of 
such  practices  as  those  which  Mr  Fox  is  now 
recording. 

I  have  now  sketched  only  too  briefly  the 
process  by  which  ethnology  has  attained  its 
present  state.  I  should  like  next  to  consider 
— ^it  must  be  very  briefly — ^where  we  hope  that 
the  science  may  come  to  stand  in  the  general 
scheme  of  learning.  In  the  first  place,  we 
believe  that  if  we  succeed  in  discovering  the 
historical  processes  by  which  human  activity 
has  produced  the  existing  cultures  of  the 
earth,  we  shall  then  be  provided  with  a 
mass  of  material  by  the  study  of  which  we 
can  formulate  the  laws  which  direct  and 
govern  the  activities  and  fate  of  those  groups, 
whether  we  call  them  tribes,  nations,  or 
empires,  into  which  the  peoples  of  the  earth 
are  divided,  as  well  as  the  laws  which  deter- 

132 


THE  AIMS   OF  ETHNOLOGY 

mine  the  growth  of  the  social  customs  and 
institutions  of  mankind. 

The  science  of  ethnology  may  well  put 
before  it  another  goal.  The  records  of  our 
own  past,  and  of  the  past  of  the  great  peoples 
from  whom  so  much  of  our  own  culture 
is  derived,  are  very  incomplete,  especially 
on  the  psychological  side.  We  have  no 
direct  means  of  learning  how  these  ancient 
peoples  felt  and  thought,  except  through 
literary  records.  Excavations  will  doubtless 
yet  bring  to  light  many  new  documents, 
while  the  decipherment  of  the  scripts  and 
hieroglyphs  of  the  Cretans,  Hittites,  and  other 
long-perished  peoples  will  doubtless  some  day 
add  greatly  to  our  knowledge.  But  there 
will  always  be  large  gaps  in  this  knowledge, 
due  to  the  imperfection  of  the  literary  record. 
Is  it  too  bold  a  wish  that  some  of  these  gaps 
may  be  supplied  by  our  knowledge  of  the 
ideas,  sentiments,  and  beliefs  of  the  far- 
distant  savages  who  still  preserve  habits  and 
customs  brought  to  them  in  long-past  ages  ? 
Is  it  too  much  to  hope  that  peoples  who  have 
preserved  with  such  fidelity  the  material 
customs  of  those  who  once  settled  among 
them  may  have  preserved  with  at  least 
equal  fidelity  the  social  and  religious  beliefs 
of  their  visitors  ?  If  these  hopes  should  be 
realised,  the  study  of  even  the  rudest  people 
of  to-day  may  contribute  to  our  under- 
standing of  those  ancient  cultures  of  Egypt, 

133 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

Sumer,  Elam,  and  Babylon,  which,  through 
their  influence  upon  the  Jews,  have  had 
so  great  an  effect,  not  only  on  our  religion, 
but  on  our  ethical  and  social  traditions. 
The  people  of  Indonesia,  New  Guinea,  and 
Melanesia  hold  beliefs  concerning  the  duality 
of  the  soul  which  closely  resemble  those  lately 
revealed  by  the  study  of  the  Pyramid  texts 
as  having  been  held  in  Egypt,  and  the  study  of 
rude  beliefs  concerning  death,  the  life  after 
death,  and  other  mysteries  may  well  supply 
links  by  which  we  may  j&ll  gaps  in  the  literary 
record. 

Before  I  finish  I  must  say  a  word  about  the 
present  situation  of  the  science  of  ethnology 
in  relation  to  its  needs.  This  science  has 
in  one  respect  a  unique  position,  and  one 
which  should  arouse  the  interest,  if  not  the 
compassion,  of  anyone  who  cares  for  learning. 
We  have  only  begun  to  understand  how  to 
collect  the  rich  store  of  material  presented 
by  the  cultures  of  the  outlying  places  of  the 
earth  at  a  moment  when  these  cultures  are 
rapidly  vanishing.  The  movement  of  our 
civilisation  which  has  put  this  rich  store  of 
material  within  our  sight,  if  not  yet  within  our 
grasp,  has  at  the  same  time  carried  with  it 
the  seeds  of  a  deadly  disease  by  which  this 
material  is  being  swept  away.  The  Tas- 
manians,  a  people  closely  allied  to,  but  yet 
differing  in  many  respects  from,  the  Australian 
aborigines,  are  already  gone.     The  Bushmen, 

134 


THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOLOGY 

the  last  representatives  of  a  people  once 
widely  spread  over  Africa,  and  probably, 
as  palaeolithic  art  suggests,  over  parts  of 
Europe,  too,  are  almost  gone,  and  only 
survive  here  and  there  in  small  numbers  in 
inhospitable  regions,  such  as  the  Kalahari 
Desert,  where  their  complete  extinction  cannot 
be  long  delayed.  The  Hottentot,  of  equal 
interest  in  the  past  history  of  Africa,  and 
possibly  of  much  significance  in  the  history 
of  Egypt,  will  soon  follow  the  Bushman. 
In  the  region  I  know  best,  in  Melanesia 
and  Polynesia,  many  tribes  have  already 
disappeared.*  On  my  last  visit  to  the  New 
Hebrides  I  heard  of  just  three  natives  left  in 
the  island  of  Aore,  on  whose  coast  sherds  of 
pottery  bear  witness  that  not  long  ago  it 
bore  a  numerous  and  thriving  population. 
In  the  island  of  Espiritu  Santo  I  visited  the 
Vulua  tribe,  which  twenty  years  ago,  accord- 
ing to  the  estimate  of  Mr  Bowie,  the  intrepid 
and  learned  missionary  of  that  district,  num- 
bered two  hundred  people.  I  found  a 
wretched  remnant  of  fifteen  to  twenty  people 
so  degraded  and  hopeless  that  I  failed  to 
arouse  any  interest  in  their  customs,  and  had 
to  be  content  with  a  few  specimens  of  their 
language.  This  differed  so  greatly  from  that 
of  surrounding  tribes  as  to  show  that  if  they 
had  been  visited  ten  years  ago  we  should  have 

*  On  this  subject  see  Essays  on  the  Depopulation  of  Melanesia 
edited  by  W.  H.  R.  Rivers,  Cambridge,  1922. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

obtained  a  record  of  a  culture  which  might 
have  supplied  links  to  assist  us  to  under- 
stand the  past  history  of  the  island.  Ten 
years  hence  there  will  almost  certainly  be 
dozens  of  tribes  in  the  same  state  as  those  of 
Aore  or  Vulua.  Even  if,  more  fortunate, 
they  manage  to  maintain  life  and  material 
prosperity,  their  beliefs  and  the  knowledge 
of  their  ancient  culture  will  certainly  dis- 
appear, for  it  is  only  from  the  old  men  of 
such  peoples  that  information  of  value  can  be 
obtained.  With  every  old  man  who  dies  in 
Melanesia  there  goes,  and  goes  for  ever, 
knowledge  which  the  scholars  of  the  future 
will  regard  as  of  inestimable  worth.  The 
two  men  who  helped  me  most  during  my 
visit  to  Melanesia  twelve  years  ago  were 
already  dead  before  I  had  been  able  to  publish 
the  facts  which  through  their  devoted  interest 
I  was  able  to  record.  Irately  I  have  heard  that 
the  man  from  whom  I  learnt  most  in  my 
visit  to  the  New  Hebrides  only  seven  years 
ago  is  already  dead,  a  victim  to  dysentery, 
which  forms  perhaps  the  most  potent  instru- 
ment for  the  undoing  of  the  people.  I  have 
told  you  this  evening  of  work  which  shows 
how  rich  a  treasure-house  of  knowledge  exists 
in  Melanesia,  knowledge  now  easily  accessible 
and  only  waiting  to  be  garnered.  Often  it 
exists  in  a  form  which  suggests  the  nuggets 
of  a  gold-field,  but  differing  from  the  metal 
in  being  so  evanescent  that  it  will  disappear 

136 


THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOLOGY 

for  ever  if  not  transmuted  into  the  lasting 
monument  provided  by  the  written  word. 
Perhaps  some  of  you  as  administrators,  mis- 
sionaries, or  doctors  will  go  to  places  where 
these  treasures  are  waiting  for  collection, 
and  in  such  case  you  will,  I  hope,  be  able  to 
spare  time  and  trouble  to  learn  how  to  collect 
and  record  the  facts  of  which  the  science  of 
ethnology  has  so  great  a  need.  Perhaps 
there  are  here  some  to  whom  the  lure  of  the 
past  makes  such  appeal  that  they  may  give 
themselves  wholly  to  the  task  of  adding  to 
the  small  but  growing  pile  of  knowledge  by 
which  the  early  history  of  mankind  may  be 
revealed. 


137 


A  NOTE   ON  "THE  AIMS 
OF  ETHNOLOGY" 

By  G.   Elliot  Smith,    F.R.S. 


ETHNOLOGY  AND   PSYCHOLOGY 

A  NOTE  ON   "THE  AIMS  OF  ETHNOI.OGY  " 

However  the  disciplines  of  the  study  of 
man  and  the  study  of  the  human  mind  may 
seem  to  differ  the  one  from  the  other,  it  has 
always  been  recognised  that  the  investigation 
of  custom  and  belief  cannot  be  wholly  divorced 
from  psychology  :  but  during  the  last  decade 
Freud  and  his  followers  have  become  involved 
in  an  intrigue  with  ethnology  which  threatens 
disaster  to  both  parties,  and  under  no  cir- 
cumstances can  lead  to  a  stable  union.  The 
new  teaching  in  ethnology,  which  is  explained 
in  the  article  by  the  late  Dr  Rivers  in  this 
number,  destroys  the  foundation  of  the  belief 
in  the  reality  of  "  typical  symbols,"  and 
brings  to  the  ground  the  fantastic  speculations 
built  upon  it  by  Freud  and  Jung. 

The  history  of  Freud's  teaching  is  rich  in 
contradictions  and  illogical  claims.  But  the 
most  remarkable  feature  of  this  great  reform 
in  psychological  method  is  the  fact  that  most 
of  the  opposition  aroused  against  it  has  been 
the  result  of  Freud's  departure  from  his  own 

141 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

principles.  The  essence  of  his  innovation 
was  the  fact  that  he  took  quite  seriously  the 
patient's  symptoms,  his  phantasies  and  his 
dreams,  and  made  a  real  attempt  to  dis- 
cover how  they  originated  and  to  explain 
their  significance.  But  after  pursuing  this 
aim  up  to  a  certain  point  and  illuminating 
the  patient's  beliefs  in  the  light  of  his  indi- 
vidual experience,  the  Freudian  psychologist 
suddenly,  and  quite  inconsequently,  throws 
overboard  all  the  essential  principles  of  Freud's 
great  reform,  and  attempts  to  force  these 
products  of  the  individual  mind  into  con- 
formity with  something  that  is  not  the  result 
of  experience.  He  assumes  certain  instinctive 
modes  of  reaction  and  certain  hereditarily 
transmitted  impulses  towards  symbolisation, 
which  are  foreign  alike  to  any  serious  psycho- 
logist's conception  of  instinct,  or  to  the 
knowledge  of  any  man  in  the  street  as  to 
the  origin  of  symbols.  To  bolster  up  claims 
that  are  in  themselves  utterly  preposterous, 
as  well  as  contrary  to  the  essence  of  his 
own  teaching — i.e.  of  the  dominating  influ- 
ence of  individual  experience — Freud  called 
in  the  aid  of  the  orthodox  doctrines  of  ethno- 
logy, unfortunately  for  him,  at  the  moment 
when,  as  Dr  Rivers  explains  in  his  article, 
they  were  beginning  to  crumble. 

During  the  last  half-century  ethnologists 
have  become  more  and  more  committed  to 
the  view  that  the  similarities  in  custom  and 

142 


ETHNOLOGY  AND   PSYCHOLOGY 

belief  so  strikingly  displayed  in  the  early 
civilisations  of  widely-scattered  peoples  might 
have  been  brought  about,  not  by  the  diffusion 
of  knowledge  and  example  from  one  group  of 
people  to  another,  but  by  the  independent 
development  of  these  likenesses  as  the  result 
of  some  innate  quality  of  the  human  mind. 
There  is  nothing  new  in  this  doctrine.  It  was 
being  taught  in  1788  by  Dr  William  Robert- 
son, Principal  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,* 
and  again  in  1835  by  Hugh  Miller  :  but  it 
was  not  until  Bastian  (i860)  decked  it  out 
in  the  terminology  of  misapplied  Herbartian 
philosophy  that  any  attention  was  given  to 
this  remarkable  fallacy.  Bastian's  Volker- 
Gedanken  can  truly  be  regarded  as  the  parents 
of  the  "  typical  symbols  "  of  the  Freudian 
doctrine.  Bastian'?  theories,  put  forward  in 
uncouth  and  unusually  obscure  German,  at- 
tracted little  notice  until  Tylor  adopted 
them  and  gave  them  expression  in  lucid 
English.  This  did  not  happen  until  Tylor 
himself  came  under  the  influence  of  the 
Oxford  atmosphere  and  used  biological  an- 
alogies, which,  although  wholly  inappropriate 
and  misleading,  captured  the  popular  imagina- 
tion in  the  seventies  of  last  century.  For  the 
reference  to  Tylor 's  doctrine  as  "  evolution  " 
revealed  a  singular  inability  to  understand 
the  meaning  of  a  simple  biological  term, 
the  more  exact  parallel  being  the  claim  for 

*  The  History  of  America,  vol.  i.  book  4. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

"  spontaneous  generation,"  with  all  its  un- 
fortunate implications  of  errors  of  observa- 
tion and  mistaken  interpretation.  However, 
Tylor's  version  of  the  teaching  of  Bastian, 
with  its  misleading  labels  "  evolution  "  and 
"  animism,"  was  adopted  far  and  wide,  and 
provided  the  jargon  that  for  more  than  half  a 
century  did  duty  for  serious  argument  and 
inhibited  real  investigation.  Freud  and  his 
disciples  eagerly  accepted  this  ethnological 
teaching  as  the  true  gospel,  the  prophets 
of  which  were  Sir  James  Fraser,  of  The 
Golden  Bough,  and  Professor  Wundt,  the 
author  of  Volkerpsychologie.  For  if  the  ethno- 
logists were  able  to  assure  Freud  and  his 
followers  that  scattered  peoples  had  inde- 
pendently the  one  of  the  other  devised  the 
same  myths  and  folk-tales,  then  the  reality  of 
"  typical  symbols  "  was  proved.  Not  only 
so,  but  the  field  was  open  for  the  Freudians 
to  repay  the  ethnologists  by  explaining  what 
their  identical  beliefs  and  m5rths  really  mean  ! 
Hence  Freud,  Abraham,  Rank,  and  the  rest 
of  them  began  to  provide  the  world  with  such 
striking  demonstrations  of  reductio  ad  absur- 
dum  as  Totem  and  Taboo,  Dreams  and  Myths, 
The  Birth  of  the  Hero,  inter  alia,  and  Jung  to 
write  about  "  the  collective  unconscious " 
and  the  phylogeny  of  symbols.  What  renders 
all  this  speculation  so  obviously  futile  is 
that  none  of  these  writers  has  taken  the 
trouble  to  go  to  first-hand  sources  for  his 

144 


ETHNOLOGY  AND  PSYCHOLOGY 

information,  for  had  he  done  so  the  baseless- 
ness of  his  pretended  explanations  could  not 
have  failed  to  become  patent.  Instead  of 
this,  the  Freudians  are  satisfied  to  get  their 
ethnological  information  second-hand  from 
the  writings  of  Sir  James  Fraser  and  Wundt, 
two  authors  deeply  committed  to  the  Bastian- 
Tylor  fallacy. 

The  importance  of  the  article  by  Dr  Rivers 
is  that  it  sketches  the  history  of  a  movement 
to  destroy  the  fallacies  of  supposed  inde- 
pendent evolutions  of  custom  and  belief  by 
proving  that  in  ancient  times,  as  at  present, 
knowledge  and  men's  interpretation  of  their 
experience  were  diffused  abroad  throughout 
the  world.  The  common  features  of  myths 
and  folk-tales  are  not  expressions  of  instinct 
or  "  the  collective  unconscious,"  nor  are 
they  "  typical  symbols."  They  are  due  to 
the  diffusion  from  one  centre  of  an  arbitrary 
tale  which  had  a  definite  history  differing 
vastly  from  that  postulated  by  either  Freud 
or  Jung. 


145 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE 
LATE    W.    H.     R.     RIVERS 

By  Charles  S.  Myers,  C.B.E., 
M.D.,  Sc.D.,  F.R.S. 


THE  INFIvUBNCE  OF  THE   lyATE 
W.  H.   R.   RIVERS* 

WiivUAM  Hai,sk  Rivers  Rivers  was  born  on 
I2th  March  1864,  at  Luton,  near  Chatham, 
the  eldest  son  of  the  Rev.  H.  F.  Rivers,  M.A., 
formerly  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and 
afterwards  vicar  of  St  Faith's,  Maidstone, 
and  of  Elizabeth,  his  wife,  nde  Hunt.  Many 
of  his  father's  family  had  been  officers  in 
the  Navy — a  fact  responsible,  doubtless,  for 
Rivers's  love  of  sea  voyages.  A  relative 
of  his  paternal  grandfather,  Lieut.  W.  T. 
Rivers,  R.N.,  was  that  brave  Lieut.  William 
Rivers,  R.N.,  who,  as  a  midshipman  in  the 
Victory  at  Trafalgar,  was  severely  wounded 
in  the  mouth  and  had  his  left  leg  shot  away 
at  the  very  beginning  of  the  action,  in  defence 
of  Nelson  or  in  trying  to  avenge  the  latter's 
mortal  wound.  So  at  least  runs  the  family 
tradition  ;  also  according  to  which  Nelson's 
last  words  to  his  surgeon  were  :  "  Take  care 
of  young  Rivers."  A  maternal  uncle  of 
Rivers  was  Dr  James  Hunt,  who  in  1863 
founded  and  was  the  first  President  of  the 
Anthropological  Society,   a  precursor  of  the 

*  The  Presidential  Address  to  the  Psychology  Section  of  the 
British  Association,  1922. 

149 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

Royal  Anthropological  Institute,  and  from 
1863  to  1866,  at  the  meetings  of  the  British 
Association,  strove  to  obtain  that  recognition 
for  anthropolog}^  as  a  distinct  Sub-section 
or  Section  which  was  successfully  won  for 
Psychology  by  his  nephew,  who  presided 
over  the  Psychological  Section  of  the  Associa- 
tion at  the  Bournemouth  meeting  in  1919, 
when  the  Psychologists  were  merely  a  Sub- 
section of  Ph^'siology. 

Our  "  young  Rivers  "  gave  his  first  lecture 
at  the  age  of  twelve,  at  a  debating  society 
of  his  father's  pupils.  Its  subject  was 
"  Monkeys."  He  was  educated  first  at  a 
preparatory  school  at  Brighton,  and  from 
1877  to  1880  at  Tonbridge  School.  Thence 
he  had  hoped  to  proceed  to  Cambridge  ;  but 
a  severe  attack  of  enteric  fever  compelled 
him  to  take  a  year's  rest,  and  thus  prevented 
him  from  competing  for  an  entrance  scholar- 
ship at  that  University.  He  matriculated 
instead  in  the  University  of  London,  and 
entered  St  Bartholomew's  Hospital  in  1882, 
sharing  the  intention  of  one  of  his  father's 
pupils  of  becoming  an  Army  doctor.  This 
idea,  however,  he  soon  relinquished ;  but, 
like  his  desire  to  go  to  Cambridge,  it  was  to 
be  realised  later  in  Hfe.* 

When  he  took  his  degree  of  Bachelor  of 
Medicine  in  1886  he  was  accounted  the  yoimg- 

•  For  many  of  the  above  details   of   Rivers' s   early  life  and 
antecedents  I  am  indebted  to  his  sister.  Miss  K.  E.  Rivers. 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

est  Bachelor  ever  known  at  his  hospital. 
Two  years  later  he  graduated  as  Doctor  of 
Medicine,  and  he  spent  these  two  and  the 
two  following  years  in  resident  appointments 
at  Chichester  (1888)  and  at  St  Bartholomew's 
(1889)  Hospitals,  in  a  brief  period  of  private 
medical  practice  (1890),  and  in  travelling 
as  ship's  surgeon  to  America  and  Japan  (1887), 
the  first  of  numerous  subsequent  voyages. 
In  189 1  he  became  house-physician  at  the 
National  Hospital,  Queen  Square,  where  he 
first  made  the  acquaintance  of  Dr  Henry 
Head,  whose  collaborator  he  was  to  be  some 
twenty  years  later  in  one  of  the  most  striking 
neurological  experiments  ever  made. 

But  before  he  began  work  at  Queen  Square, 
before  he  assisted  Horsley  there  in  his  then 
wonderful  operations  on  the  brain,  before  he 
met  Head  fresh  from  his  studies  in  Germany 
and  enthusiastic  over  the  colour-vision  work 
and  novel  physiological  conceptions  of  Hering, 
Rivers  had  already  shown  his  interest  in 
the  study  of  the  mind  and  the  nervous  system. 
Thus,  in  1888,  when  he  was  twenty-four 
years  of  age,  we  find  in  the  St  Bartholomew's 
Hospital  Reports  (vol.  xxiv.  pages  249-251) 
his  first  published  paper  on  "A  Case  of 
Spasm  of  the  Muscles  of  Neck  Causing  Protru- 
sion of  the  Head,"  and  in  the  following  year, 
in  the  same  Reports  (vol.  xxv.  pages  279-280), 
an  abstract  of  a  paper  read  by  him  before  the 
Abernethian  Society,  entitled  "  Delirium  and 

151 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

its  Allied  Conditions."  At  this  early  date  he 
pointed  out  the  analogies  between  delirium 
and  mania,  protested  against  the  use  of 
narcotics  in  delirium,  and  condemned  the 
wide  separation — too  wide  even  to-day — 
between  diseases  of  the  mind  and  diseases 
of  the  body.  In  1891  and  in  1893  he  read 
papers  to  the  Abernethian  Society,  abstracts 
of  which  appear  in  the  St  Bartholomew's 
Hospital  Reports  (vol.  xxvii.  pages  285-286, 
vol.  xxix.  page  350),  on  "  Hysteria  "  and  on 
"  Neurasthenia,"  to  which  his  interests  were 
to  return  so  fruitfully  during  and  after  the 
Great  War. 

In  1892  he  spent  the  spring  and  early 
summer  at  Jena,  attending  the  lectures  of 
Bucken,  Ziehen,  Binswanger,  and  others.  In 
a  diary  kept  by  him  during  this  visit  to 
Germany  the  following  sentence  occurs  :  "  I 
have  during  the  last  few  weeks  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  I  should  go  in  for  insanity 
when  I  return  to  England  and  work  as  much 
as  possible  at  psychology."  Accordingly,  in 
the  same  year  he  became  Clinical  Assistant 
at  the  Bethlem  Royal  Hospital,  and  in  1893 
he  assisted  G.  H.  Savage  in  his  lectures  on 
mental  diseases  at  Guy's  Hospital,  laying 
special  stress  on  their  psychological  aspect. 
About  the  same  time,  at  the  request  of 
Professor  Sully,  he  began  to  lecture  on  experi- 
mental psychology  at  University  ^  College, 
lyondon. 

152 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

Meanwhile,  at  Cambridge,  Michael  Foster 
was  seeking  someone  who  would  give  instruc- 
tion there  in  the  physiology  of  the  sense 
organs,  M'Kendrick  having,  as  Examiner  in 
Physiology,  recently  complained  of  the  in- 
adequate training  of  the  Cambridge  students 
in  this  branch  of  the  subject.  Foster's  choice 
fell  on  Rivers,  and  in  1893  he  invited  him  to 
the  University  for  this  purpose.  For  a  few 
months  Rivers  taught  simultaneously  at  Cam- 
bridge and  at  Guy's  Hospital  and  at  Univer- 
sity College,  lyondon.  He  went  to  Germany 
for  a  short  period  of  study  under  Professor 
Krapelin,  then  of  Heidelberg,  whose  brilliant 
analysis  of  the  work  curve  and  careful  in- 
vestigations into  the  effects  of  drugs  on 
bodily  and  mental  work  had  aroused  his 
intense  interest.  In  collaboration  with  Krape- 
lin, he  carried  out  a  brief  investigation  into 
mental  fatigue  and  recovery,  published  in 
1896  [Journal  of  Mental  Science,  vol.  xlii. 
pages  525-529,  and  Krapelin's  Psychologische 
Arheiten,  vol.  i.  pages  627-678),  which  indi- 
cated that  even  an  hour's  rest  is  inadequate 
to  neutralise  the  fatigue  of  half  an  hour's 
mental  work,  and  paved  the  way  for  Rivers's 
important  researches  some  ten  years  later 
upon  the  effects  of  drugs  on  muscular  and 
mental  fatigue. 

At  Cambridge  Rivers  set  himself  to  plan 
one  of  the  earliest  systematic  practical  courses 
in    experimental    psychology    in    the    world, 

153  u 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

certainly  the  first  in  this  country.  In  1897 
he  was  officially  recognised  by  the  University, 
being  elected  to  the  newly-established  I^ecture- 
ship  in  Physiological  and  Experimental  Psy- 
chology. But  the  welcome  and  encourage- 
ment he  received  from  cognate  branches  of 
study  at  Cambridge  could  hardly  be  called 
embarrassing.  Even  to-day  practical  work 
is  not  deemed  essential  for  Cambridge  honours 
candidates  in  elementary  psychology  ;  psy- 
chology is  not  admitted  among  the  subjects 
of  the  Natural  Sciences  Tripos ;  and  no 
provision  is  made  for  teaching  the  subject 
at  Cambridge  to  medical  students.  Rivers 
first  turned  his  attention  principally  to  the 
study  of  colour  vision  and  visual  space  per- 
ception. Between  1893  and  1901  he  published 
experimental  papers  "  On  Binocular  Colour- 
mixture  "  {Proc.  Camhs.  Philosoph.  Soc,  vol. 
viii.  pages  273-277),  on  "  The  Photometry  of 
Coloured  Papers  "  (Jour,  of  Physiol.,  vol.  xxii. 
pages  137-145),  and  "  On  Erythropsia  " 
(Trans.  Ophthal.  Soc,  London,  vol.  xxi.  pages 
296-305),  and  until  1898  he  was  immersed  in 
the  task  of  mastering  the  entire  literature 
of  past  experimental  work  on  vision,  the 
outcome  of  which  was  published  in  1900  as  an 
article  in  the  second  volume  of  the  important 
Text-book  of  Physiology,  edited  by  Sir  Edward 
Sharpey  Schafer. 

This   exhaustive   article   of   123   pages   on 
"  Vision  "  by  Rivers  is  still  regarded  as  the 

154 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

most  accurate  and  careful  account  of  the 
whole  subject  in  the  English  language.  It 
is  of  special  value,  not  only  as  an  encyclo- 
paedic storehouse  of  references  to  the  work 
of  previous  investigators — although  with  char- 
acteristic modesty  Rivers  omits  to  mention 
himself  among  them — but  also  for  the  unsur- 
passed critical  account  of  the  principal  theories 
of  colour  vision.  In  it  he  displayed  the 
strength  and  the  weakness  of  Hering's  theory 
and  the  untenability  of  Helmholtz's  explana- 
tions of  successive  contrast  as  due  to  fatigue, 
and  of  simultaneous  contrast  as  due  to 
psychological  factors.  Rivers  clearly  showed 
that  the  effect  of  psychological  factors  is 
not  to  create  but  to  mask  the  phenomena  of 
simultaneous  contrast,  which  are  really  de- 
pendent on  what  he  terms  "  the  physiological 
reciprocity  of  adjoining  retinal  areas."  His 
enthusiasm  for  Hering's  theories  led  him  to 
give  by  far  the  most  detailed  presentation 
of  them  that  had  then  or  has  since  appeared 
in  our  language.  In  classifying  the  pheno- 
mena of  red-green  colour-blindness,  on  which 
Helmholtz  largely  based  his  trichromic  theory. 
Rivers  proposed  the  useful  terms  "  scotery- 
throus  "  and  "  photerythrous  "  in  place  of  the 
terms  "  protanopic  "  and  "  deuteranopic,"  so 
as  to  avoid,  in  describing  these  phenomena,  the 
use  of  names  which  implied  the  acceptance  of  a 
particular  theory  of  colour  vision.  These  terms 
have  failed,  however,  to  obtain  general  adoption. 

155 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

In  1896  Rivers  published  an  important 
paper  "  On  the  Apparent  Size  of  Objects  " 
{Mind,  N.S.,  voL  v.  pages  71-80),  in  which 
he  described  his  investigations  into  the  effects 
of  atropin  and  eserin  on  the  size  of  seen 
objects.  He  distinguished  two  kinds  of  mi- 
cropsia which  had  hitherto  been  confused — 
micropsia  at  the  fixation-point  due  to  irradia- 
tion, and  micropsia  beyond  the  fixation-point, 
which  is  of  special  psychological  importance. 
Rivers  came  to  the  interesting  conclusion 
that  the  mere  effort  to  carry  out  a  movement 
of  accommodation  may  produce  the  same 
micropsia  as  when  that  effort  is  actually 
followed  by  movement.  In  other  words, 
an  illusion  of  size  may  be  dependent  solely  on 
central  factors.  His  later  work,  in  con- 
junction with  Professor  Dawes  Hicks,  on 
"  The  Illusion  of  Compared  Horizontal  and 
Vertical  lyines,"  which  was  published  in  1908 
{Brit.  Jour,  of  Psychol.,  vol.  ii.  pages  241-260), 
led  him  to  trace  this  illusion  to  origins  still 
less  motor  in  nature.  Here  horizontal  and 
vertical  lines  were  compared  under  tachisto- 
scopic  and  under  prolonged  exposure.  The 
momentary  view  of  the  lines  in  the  tachisto- 
scope  precluded  any  movement  or  effort  of 
movement  of  the  eyes,  which  had  been 
supposed  by  many  to  be  responsible  for  the 
over-estimation  of  vertical  lines  owing  to 
the  greater  difficulty  of  eye  movement  in  the 
vertical  as  compared  with  the  horizontal  direc- 

156 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

tion.  The  amount  of  the  illusion  was  found 
to  be  approximately  the  same  for  tachisto- 
scopic  as  for  prolonged  exposure  of  the  lines, 
but  in  the  tachistoscopic  exposure  the  judg- 
ment was  more  definite  and  less  hesitating — 
in  other  words,  more  naive,  more  purely 
sensory,  more  "  physiological  " — ^than  in  pro- 
longed exposure.  This  result,  which  led  to 
further  work  by  Dr  B.  O.  lycwis  at  Cambridge 
under  Rivers  upon  the  Miiller-Lyer  illusion 
and  upon  the  comparison  of  "  filled "  and 
"  empty "  space,  is  of  fundamental  physio- 
logical importance.  Although  it  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  the  view  that  visual  space 
perception  depends  for  its  genesis  on  eye 
movement,  it  compels  us  to  admit  that 
visual  space  perception,  once  acquired,  can 
occur  in  the  absence  of  eye  movement ; 
or,  in  more  general  language,  that  changes 
in  consciousness,  originally  arising  in  connec- 
tion with  muscular  activity,  may  later  occur 
in  the  absence  of  that  activity.  The  provision 
of  experimental  evidence  in  favour  of  so 
fundamental  and  wide-reaching  a  view  is 
obviously  of  the  greatest  importance. 

In  1898,  in  which  year  he  was  given  the 
degree  of  Hon.  M.A.  at  Cambridge,  Rivers 
took  a  fresh  path  in  his  varied  career  by 
accepting  Dr  A.  C.  Haddon's  invitation  to 
join  the  Cambridge  Anthropological  Expedi- 
tion to  the  Torres  Straits.  This  was  the 
first   expedition   in   which   systematic   work 

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PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

was  carried  out  in  the  ethnological  application 
of  the  methods  and  apparatus  of  experimental 
psychology.  His  former  pupils,  Prof.  W. 
M'Dougall  and  I,  assisted  Rivers  in  this 
new  field.  Rivers  interested  himself  especially 
in  investigating  the  vision  of  the  natives — 
their  visual  acuity,  their  colour  vision,  their 
colour  nomenclature,  and  their  susceptibility 
to  certain  visual  geometric  illusions.  He 
continued  to  carry  out  psychological  work 
of  the  same  comparative  ethnological  char- 
acter after  his  return  from  the  Torres  Straits 
in  Scotland  (where  he  and  I  sought  compara- 
tive data),  during  a  visit  to  Egypt  in  the 
winter  of  1900,  and  from  1901-2  in  his  expedi- 
tion to  the  Todas  of  Southern  India. 

The  Torres  Straits  expedition  marked  a 
turning-point  in  Rivers's  life  interests,  as 
they  were  for  the  first  time  directed  towards 
ethnological  studies,  to  which  he  became 
ardently  devoted  ever  after,  until  his  death 
removed  one  who  at  the  time  was  President 
of  the  Royal  Anthropological  Institute,  had 
in  1920-1  been  President  of  the  Folk  Lore 
Society,  and  had  in  191 1  been  President  of 
the  Section  of  Anthropology  of  the  British 
Association.  His  ethnological  and  sociolo- 
gical work  during  his  expedition  to  the  Todas 
and  during  his  two  subsequent  expeditions 
to  Melanesia  is  too  well  known  to  need  men- 
tion here.  It  was  Rivers's  own  view  that  his 
most  important  contributions  to  science  are 

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INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.    RIVERS 

to  be  found  in  the  two  volumes  of  his  History 
of  Melanesian  Society,  pubhshed  in  1914. 

His  psychological  investigations  among  the 
Torres  Straits  islanders,  Egyptians,  and  Todas 
[Reports  of  the  Cambridge  Anthrop.  Exped. 
to  Torres  Straits,  vol.  ii.  Pt.  I.  pages  1-132  ; 
Jour,  of  Anthrop.  Inst.,  vol.  xxxi.  pages 
229-247 ;  Brit.  Jour,  of  Psychol.,  vol.  i. 
pages  321-396)  will  ever  stand  as  models  of 
precise,  methodical  observations  in  the  field 
of  ethnological  psychology.  Nowhere  does 
he  disclose  more  clearly  the  admirably  scien- 
tific bent  of  his  mind — his  insistence  of 
scientific  procedure,  his  delight  in  scientific 
analysis,  and  his  facility  in  adapting  scientific 
methods  to  novel  experimental  conditions. 
He  reached  the  conclusion  that  no  substantial 
difference  exists  between  the  visual  acuity 
of  civilised  and  uncivilised  peoples,  and  that 
the  latter  show  a  very  definite  diminution 
in  sensibility  to  blue,  which,  as  he  suggested, 
is  perhaps  attributable  to  the  higher  macular 
pigmentation  among  coloured  peoples.  He 
observed  a  generally  defective  nomenclature 
for  blue,  green,  and  brown  among  primitive 
peoples,  both  white  and  coloured,  and  large 
differences  in  the  frequency  of  colour-blindness 
among  the  different  uncivilised  peoples  whom 
he  examined.  In  his  work  on  visual  illusions 
he  found  that  the  vertical-horizontal-line 
illusion  was  more  marked,  while  the  Miiller- 
I^yer   illusion  was  less  marked,   among   un- 

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PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

civilised  than  among  civilised  communities  ; 
and  he  concluded  that  the  former  illusion 
was  therefore  dependent  rather  on  physio- 
logical, the  latter  rather  on  psychological 
factors,  the  former  being  counteracted,  the 
latter  being  favoured,  by  previous  experience 
— e.g.  of  drawing  lines  or  of  apprehending 
complex  figures  as  wholes. 

In  1903,  the  year  after  his  return  from 
India,  and  the  year  of  his  election  to  a  Fellow- 
ship at  St  John's  College,  Rivers  began  an 
investigation,  continued  for  five  years,  with 
Dr  Henry  Head,  in  which  the  latter,  certain 
sensory  nerves  of  whose  arm  had  been  experi- 
mentally divided,  acted  as  subject,  and  Rivers 
acted  as  experimenter,  applying  various 
stimuli  to  the  arm  and  recording  the  pheno- 
mena of  returning  cutaneous  sensibility.  The 
results  of  this  heroic  and  lengthy  investiga- 
tion are  well  known.  The  discovery  of  a 
crude  punctate  protopathic  sensibility,  dis- 
tinct from  a  more  refined  epicritic  sensibility, 
so  deeply  impressed  Rivers  that  a  decade 
later  his  psychological  views  may  be  said  to 
have  been  centred  round  this  distinction 
between  the  ungraded,  "  all-or-nothing,"  dif- 
fusely localising  functions  of  the  protopathic 
system,  and  the  delicately  graded,  discrimina- 
tive, accurately  localising  functions  of  the 
epicritic  system.  The  exact  interpretation 
of  this  "  Human  Experiment  in  Nerve 
Division,"  published  at  length  in  1908  [Brain, 

160 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

vol.  xxxi.  pages  323-450),  has  been  disputed 
by  subsequent  workers,  whose  divergent  re- 
sults, however,  are  at  least  partly  due  to 
their  employment  of  different  methods  of 
procedure.  Head's  experiment  has  never  been 
identically  repeated,  and  until  this  has  been 
done  we  are  probably  safe  in  trusting  to  the 
results  reached  by  the  imaginative  genius 
and  the  cautious  critical  insight  of  this  rare 
combination  of  investigators.  At  a  far  higher 
nervous  level  broad  analogies  to  this  peri- 
pheral analysis  of  cutaneous  sensibility  were 
later  found  by  Head  when  thalamic  came  to  be 
compared  with  cortical  activity  and  sensi- 
bility. 

While  working  with  Head  upon  his  arm, 
Rivers's  indomitable  activity  led  him  to 
simxiltaneous  occupation  in  other  fields.  In 
1904  he  assisted  Professor  James  Ward  to 
found  and  to  edit  the  British  Journal  of 
Psychology,  and  in  that  year  he  also  received 
an  invitation  to  deliver  the  Croonian  I^ectures 
in  1906  at  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians, 
of  which  in  1899  he  had  been  elected  a  Fellow. 
The  study  of  drug  effects  had  long  interested 
him.  In  a  paper  on  "  Experimental  Psycho- 
logy in  Relation  to  Insanity,"  read  before 
the  Medico-Psychological  Society  in  1895 
(Lancet,  vol.  Ixxiii.  page  867),  he  had  drawn 
the  attention  of  psychiatrists  to  the  compara- 
bility of  drug  effects  with  the  early  stages  of 
mental  disorders  before  they  were  seen  by  the 

161  X 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

physician.  And  so,  reverting  to  the  work  he 
had  done  under  Krapelin  many  years  pre- 
viously, he  chose  as  his  subject  for  the  Croonian 
Lectures  "  The  Influence  of  Alcohol  and  other 
Drugs  on  Fatigue"  (Arnold,  1908).  But 
although  he  utilised  Krapelin's  ergograph 
and  many  of  Krapelin's  methods,  Rivers's 
flair  for  discovering  previous  "  faulty  methods 
of  investigation  "  and  his  devotion  to  scien- 
tific methods  and  accuracy  could  not  fail  to 
advance  the  subject.  Of  no  one  may  it  be 
more  truly  said  than  of  him — nihil  tetigit 
quod  non  ornavit.  He  felt  instinctively  that 
many  of  the  supposed  effects  of  alcohol  were 
really  due  to  the  suggestion,  interest,  excite- 
ment, or  sensory  stimulation  accompanying 
the  taking  of  the  drug.  Accordingly  he 
disguised  the  drug,  and  prepared  a  control 
mixture  which  was  indistinguishable  from  it. 
On  certain  days  the  drug  mixture  was  taken, 
on  other  days  the  control  mixture  was  taken, 
the  subject  never  knowing  which  he  was 
drinking.  Rivers  engaged  Mr  H.  N.  Webber 
as  a  subject  who  could  devote  himself  to  the 
investigation  so  completely  as  to  lead  the 
necessarily  uniform  life  while  it  was  being 
carried  out.  He  found  that  the  sudden 
cessation  of  all  tea  and  coffee  necessary  for 
the  study  of  the  effects  of  caffeine  induced 
a  loss  of  energy,  and  that  other  mental  dis- 
turbance might  occur  through  giving  up  all 
forms    of    alcoholic    drink.     Therefore    most 

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INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

of  his  experiments  were  carried  out  more  than 
twelve  months  after  the  taking  of  these 
drinks  had  been  discontinued.  Instead  of 
recording  a  single  ergogram,  Rivers  took 
several  sets  of  ergograms  each  day,  each 
set  consisting  usually  of  six  ergograms  taken 
at  intervals  of  two  minutes,  and  separated 
from  the  next  set  by  an  interval  of  thirty  or 
sixty  minutes.  He  arranged  that  the  drug 
mixture  or  the  control  mixture  should  be 
taken  after  obtaining  the  first  set  of  ergo- 
grams, which  served  as  a  standard  wherewith 
subsequent  sets  on  the  same  day  might  be 
compared.  He  worked  with  Mr  Webber  on 
alcohol  and  caffeine,  and  his  research  was 
followed  by  the  similar  work  of  Dr  P.  C.  V. 
Jones  in  1908  on  strychnine,  and  of  Dr  J.  G. 
Slade  in  1909  on  Liebig  extract. 

With  these  vast  improvements  in  method. 
Rivers  failed  to  confirm  the  conclusions  of 
nearly  all  earlier  investigators  on  the  effects 
of  from  5  to  20  c.c.  of  absolute  alcohol  on 
muscular  work.  His  results  with  these  doses, 
alike  for  muscular  and  mental  work,  were 
mainly  negative,  and  indeed  with  larger 
doses  (40  c.c.)  were  variable  and  inconclusive  ; 
although  an  equivalent  quantity  of  whisky 
gave  an  immediate  increase  of  muscular 
work — a  result  which  strongly  suggests  the 
influence  of  sensory  stimulation  rather  than 
the  direct  effect  of  the  drug  on  the  central 
nervous  system  or  on  the  muscular  tissues. 

163 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

Rivers  concluded  that  alcohol  may  in  some 
conditions  favourably  act  on  muscular  work 
by  increasing  pleasurable  emotion  and  by 
dulling  sensations  of  fatigue,  but  that  prob- 
ably its  most  important  effect  is  to  depress 
higher  control,  thus  tending  to  increase  mus- 
cular and  to  diminish  mental  efficiency. 
Working  with  caffeine,  Rivers  also  obtained 
effects  much  less  pronounced  than  those 
recorded  by  several  earlier  observers.  He 
adduced  evidence  to  indicate  that  (like  alcohol) 
caffeine  has  a  double  action  on  muscular 
activity,  the  one  immediately  increasing  the 
height  of  the  contractions  obtained  and  per- 
sisting, the  other  producing  an  initial  slow, 
transitory  increase  in  the  number  of  the 
contractions,  and  then  a  fall.  Following 
Krapelin,  he  suggested  that  the  former  action 
represents  a  peripheral,  the  latter  a  central 
effect. 

He  also  put  forward  novel  suggestions  as 
to  the  true  course  of  the  fatigue  curve,  and 
laid  stress  on  the  importance  of  carrying 
out  ergographic  work  by  peripheral  electrical 
stimulation.  These  views  are  certain  to  bear 
fruit  in  the  future.  Indeed,  it  may  be  safely 
said  that  no  one  can  henceforth  afford  to 
investigate  the  effect  of  drugs  on  the  intact 
organism  without  first  mastering  Rivers's 
work  on  the  subject. 

From  the  concluding  passages  of  these 
Croonian    lycctures    the    following    sentences 

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INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

may  be  aptly  cited  :  "  The  branch  of  psycho- 
logy in  which  I  am  chiefly  interested  is  that 
to  which  the  name  of  individual  psychology 
is  usually  given.  It  is  that  branch  of  psycho- 
logy which  deals  with  the  differences  in  the 
mental  constitutions  of  different  peoples,  and 
by  an  extension  of  the  term  to  the  differences 
which  characterise  the  members  of  different 
races.  .  .  .  These  experiments  leave  little 
doubt  that  variations  in  the  actions  of  drugs 
on  different  persons  may  have  their  basis  in 
deep-seated  physiological  variations,  and  I 
believe  that  the  study  of  these  variations  of 
susceptibility  may  do  more  than  perhaps 
any  other  line  of  work  to  enable  us  to  under- 
stand the  nature  of  temperament  and  the 
relation  between  the  mental  and  physical 
characters  which  form  its  two  aspects." 

Rivers's  interests  did  not  lie  in  the  collection 
of  masses  of  heterogeneous  data,  in  obtaining 
blurred  averages  from  vast  numbers  of  indi- 
viduals, in  concocting  mathematical  devices, 
or  in  applying  mathematical  formulae  to  the 
numerical  data  thus  accumulated  ;  they  lay 
throughout  his  varied  career  in  studying 
and  analysing  individual  mental  differences, 
in  getting  to  know  the  individual  in  his 
relation  to  his  environment.  In  ordinary 
circumstances,  as  he  later  said,  "  There  is  too 
little  scope  for  the  "variations  of  conditions 
which  is  the  essence  of  experiment.  .  .  . 
While  the  experimental  method  as   applied 

165 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

to  the  normal  adult  has  borne  little  fruit,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  rate  too  highly  the 
importance  of  experiment  in  discovering  and 
testing  methods  to  be  used  in  other  lines  of 
psychological  inquiry  where  a  wider  variation 
of  conditions  is  present "  [Brit.  Jour,  of 
Psychol.,  vol.  X.  page  185). 

It  was  the  importance  of  studying  the  play 
of  the  most  variable  conditions  that  led 
Rivers  to  investigate,  as  we  have  seen, 
first  racial  mental  differences,  then  the  differ- 
ences produced  in  a  given  individual  by  nerve 
section,  and  finally  those  produced  in  different 
individuals  by  different  drugs.  Throughout 
his  life  he  was  steadfast  to  the  biological 
standpoint,  correlating  the  psychological  with 
the  physiological,  and  hoping  to  discover 
different  mental  levels  corresponding  to  differ- 
ent neural  levels. 

And  so  we  approach  the  last  phase  of 
Rivers's  psychological  work,  the  outcome 
of  his  war  experiences.  In  1907  he  had  given 
up  his  University  teaching  in  experimental 
psychology  ;  for  six  years  before  the  war  he 
had  published  nothing  of  psychological  or 
physiological  interest.  This  was  a  period 
in  which  Rivers  devoted  himself  wholly  to 
the  ethnology  and  sociology  of  primitive 
peoples.  The  outbreak  of  war  found  him 
for  the  second  time  visiting  Melanesia  for 
ethnological  field  work.  Failing  at  first  to 
get   war   work   on   his    return   to   England, 

166 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

Rivers  set  himself  to  prepare  the  Fitzpatrick 
I^ectures  on  "  Medicine,  Magic,  and  Religion," 
which  he  had  been  invited  to  deliver  to  the 
Royal  College  of  Physicians  of  I^ondon  in 
1915  and  1916.  In  1915  his  psychological 
and  ethnological  researches  were  recognised 
by  the  award  to  him  of  a  Royal  Medal  by 
the  Royal  Society,  of  which  he  had  been 
elected  a  Fellow  in  1908.  In  Jtdy  1915  he 
went  as  medical  officer  to  the  Maghull  War 
Hospital,  near  Liverpool,  and  in  1916  to  the 
Craiglockhart  War  Hospital,  Edinburgh,  re- 
ceiving a  commission  in  the  R.A.M.C.  In 
these  hospitals  he  began  the  work  on  the 
psychoneuroses  that  led  him  to  his  studies  of 
the  unconscious  and  of  dreams,  which  resulted 
in  his  well-known  book.  Instinct  and  the  Uncon- 
scious, published  first  in  1920  (already  in  a 
second  edition),  and  in  a  practically  completed 
volume  on  Conflict  and  Dream,  which  is  to  be 
published  posthumously.  From  1 917  he  acted 
as  consulting  psychologist  to  the  Royal  Air 
Force,  being  attached  to  the  Central  Hospital 
at  Hampstead. 

This  period  not  merely  marks  a  new  phase 
in  Rivers 's  work,  but  is  also  characterised 
by  a  distinct  change  in  his  personality  and 
writings.  In  entering  the  Army  and  in 
investigating  the  psychoneuroses  he  was  ful- 
filling the  desires  of  his  youth.  Whether 
through  the  realisation  of  such  long-discarded 
or  suppressed  wishes,  or  through  other  causes 

167 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   POLITICS 

— e.g.  the  gratified  desire  of  an  opportunity 
for  more  sympathetic  insight  into  the  mental 
Hfe  of  his  fellows — he  became  another  and  a 
far  happier  man.  Diffidence  gave  place  to 
confidence,  hesitation  to  certainty,  reticence 
to  outspokenness,  a  somewhat  laboured  liter- 
ary style  to  one  remarkable  for  its  ease  and 
charm.  Over  forty  publications  can  be  traced 
to  these  years,  between  1916  and  the  date  of 
his  death.  It  was  a  period  in  which  his  genius 
was  released  from  its  former  shackles,  in 
which  intuition  was  less  controlled  by  intel- 
lectual doubt,  in  which  inspiration  brought 
with  it  the  usual  accompaniment  of  emotional 
conviction — even  an  occasional  impatience 
with  those  who  failed  to  accept  his  point  of 
view.  But  his  honest,  generous  character 
remained  unchanged  to  the  last.  Ever  willing 
to  devote  himself  unsparingly  to  a  cause  he 
believed  right,  or  to  give  of  his  best  to  help 
a  fellow-being  in  mental  distress,  he  worked 
with  an  indomitable  self-denying  energy,  won 
the  gratitude  and  affection  of  nmnberless 
nerve-shattered  soldier-patients,  whom  he 
treated  with  unsurpassed  judgment  and 
success,  and  attracted  all  kinds  of  people 
to  this  new  aspect  of  psychology.  Painters, 
poets,  authors,  artisans,  all  came  to  recog- 
nise the  value  of  his  work,  to  seek,  to  win, 
and  to  appreciate  his  sympathy  and  his 
friendship.  It  was  characteristic  of  his  thor- 
oughness that  while  attached  to  the  Royal 

168 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

Air  Force  he  took  numerous  flights,  "  looping 
the  loop  "  and  performing  other  trying  evolu- 
tions in  the  air,  so  that  he  might  gain  adequate 
experience  of  flying  and  be  able  to  treat  his 
patients  and  to  test  candidates  satisfactorily. 
He  had  the  courage  to  defend  much  of  Freud's 
new  teaching  at  a  time  when  it  was  care- 
lessly condemned  in  toto  by  those  in  authority, 
who  were  too  ignorant  or  too  incompetent 
to  form  any  just  opinion  of  its  undoubted 
merits  and  undoubted  defects.  He  was  pre- 
pared to  admit  the  importance  of  the  conflict 
of  social  factors  with  the  sexual  instincts 
in  certain  psychoneuroses  of  civil  life,  but  in 
the  psychoneuroses  of  warfare  and  of  occupa- 
tions like  mining  he  believed  that  the  con- 
flicting instincts  were  not  sexual,  but  were 
the  danger  instincts,  related  to  the  instinct 
of  self-preservation. 

Thus  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term  Rivers 
became  a  man  of  the  world,  and  no  longer  a 
man  of  the  laboratory  and  of  the  study. 
He  found  time  to  serve  on  the  Medical  Re- 
search Council's  Air  Medical  Investigation 
Committee,  on  its  Mental  Disorders  Com- 
mittee, on  its  Miners'  Nystagmus  Committee, 
and  on  the  Psychological  Committee  of  its 
Industrial  Fatigue  Research  Board.  He 
served  on  a  committee,  of  ecclesiastical  com- 
plexion, appointed  to  inquire  into  the  new 
psychotherapy,  and  he  had  many  close  friends 
among  the  missionaries,   to  whom  he  gave 

169  Y 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

and  from  whom  he  received  assistance  in 
the  social  and  ethnological  side  of  their 
work. 

In  1919,  in  which  year  he  received  honorary 
degrees  from  the  Universities  of  St  Andrews 
and  Manchester,  he  returned  to  Cambridge 
as  Prselector  in  Natural  Sciences  at  St  John's 
College,  and  began  immediately  to  exercise 
a  wonderful  influence  over  the  younger 
members  of  the  University  by  his  fascinating 
lectures,  his  "  Sunday  evenings,"  and,  above 
all,  by  his  ever-ready  interest  and  sympathy. 
As  he  himself  wrote,  after  the  war  work, 
"  which  brought  me  into  contact  with  the 
real  problems  of  life  ...  I  felt  that  it  was 
impossible  for  me  to  return  to  my  life  of 
detachment."  And  when  a  few  months  be- 
fore his  death  he  was  invited  by  the  Labour 
Party  to  a  still  more  public  sphere  of  work, 
viz.  to  become  a  Parliamentary  candidate 
representing  the  University  of  London,  once 
again  he  gave  himself  unsparingly.  He  wrote 
at  the  time  :  "To  one  whose  life  has  been 
passed  in  scientific  research  and  education 
the  prospect  of  entering  practical  politics 
can  be  no  light  matter.  But  the  times  are 
so  ominous,  the  outlook  both  for  our  own 
country  and  the  world  so  black,  that  if  others 
think  I  can  be  of  service  in  political  life  I 
cannot  refuse."  On  several  occasions  sub- 
sequently he  addressed  interested  lyondon 
audiences,  consisting  largely  of  his  supporters, 

170 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

on    the    relations    between    Psychology    and 
Politics. 

Rivers's  views  on  the  so-called  herd-instinct 
were  the  natural  outcome  of  those  which  he 
had  put  forward  during  the  preceding  five 
years  and  collected  together  in  his  Instinct 
and  the  Unconscious.  His  aim  in  writing 
this  book  was,  as  he  says,  "  to  provide  a 
biological  theory  for  the  psychoneuroses," 
to  view  the  psychological  from  the  physio- 
logical standpoint.  He  maintained  that  an 
exact  correspondence  holds  between  the  in- 
hibition of  the  physiologist  and  the  repression 
of  the  psychologist.  He  regarded  mental 
disorders  as  mainly  dependent  on  the  coming 
to  the  surface  of  older  activities  which  had 
been  previously  controlled  or  suppressed  by 
the  later  products  of  evolution.  Here  Rivers 
went  beyond  adopting  Hughlings  Jackson's 
celebrated  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of 
nervous  diseases  as  arising  largely  from  the 
release  of  lower-level  activities  from  higher- 
level  controls.  He  further  supposed  that  these 
lower-level  activities  represent  earlier  racial 
activities  held  more  or  less  in  abeyance  by 
activities  later  acquired.  This  conception 
he  derived  from  his  work  with  Henry  Head  on 
cutaneous  sensibility.  Rivers  could  see  but 
"  two  chief  possibilities  "  of  interpreting  the 
phenomena  disclosed  in  the  study  of  Head's 
arm.  Either  epicritic  sensibility  is  proto- 
pathic   sensibility   in   greater   perfection,    or 

171 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

else  protopathic  sensibility  and  epicritic  sensi- 
bility represent  two  distinct  stages  in  the 
development  of  the  nervous  system.  Failing 
to  see  any  other  explanation,  he  adopted 
the  second  of  these  alternatives.  He  sup- 
posed that  at  some  period  of  evolution,  when 
epicritic  sensibility,  with  its  generally  surface 
distribution,  its  high  degree  of  discrimination, 
and  its  power  of  accurate  localisation,  made  its 
appearance,  the  previously  existing  proto- 
pathic sensibility,  with  its  punctate  distribu- 
tion, its  "  all-or-nothing  "  character,  and  its 
broad  radiating  localisation,  became  in  part 
inhibited  or  "  suppressed,"  in  part  blended 
or  "  fused  "  with  the  newly-acquired  sensi- 
bility so  as  to  form  a  useful  product.  He 
supposed  that  the  suppressed  portion  per- 
sisted in  a  condition  of  unconscious  existence, 
and  he  emphasised  the  biological  importance 
of  suppression.  He  considered  at  first  that 
the  protopathic  sensibility  "  has  all  the  char- 
acters we  associate  with  instinct,"  whereas 
the  later  epicritic  sensibility  has  the  characters 
of  intelligence  or  reason.  So  he  came  to 
hold  that  instinct  "  led  the  animal  kingdom 
a  certain  distance  in  the  line  of  progress," 
whereupon  "  a  new  development  began  on 
different  lines,"  "  starting  a  new  path,  de- 
veloping a  new  mechanism  which  utilised 
such  portions  of  the  old  as  suited  its  purpose." 
Evolutio  per  saltus  was  thus  the  keynote  of 
Rivers's  views  on  mental  development.     Just 

172 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

as  the  experience  of  the  caterpillar  or  tadpole 
is  for  the  most  part  suppressed  in  the  experi- 
ence of  the  butterfly  or  frog,  so  instinctive 
reactions  tend  to  be  suppressed  in  intelligent 
experience  whenever  the  immediate  and 
unmodifiable  nature  of  the  one  becomes 
incompatible  with  the  diametrically  opposite 
characters  of  the  other.  Just  as  parts  of 
the  protopathic  fuse  with  the  later  acquired 
epicritic  sensibility,  so  parts  of  our  early 
experience,  of  which  other  parts  are  sup- 
pressed, fuse  with  later  experience  in  affecting 
adult  character.  "  Experience,"  he  explained, 
"  becomes  unconscious  because  instinct  and 
intelligence  run  on  different  lines,  and  are  in 
many  respects  incompatible  with  one  another." 

Rivers  was  compelled  later  to  recognise 
"  epicritic "  characters  in  certain  instincts. 
He  came  to  suppose  that  "  the  instincts 
connected  with  the  needs  of  the  individual  " 
and  with  the  early  preservation  of  the  race 
are  mainly  "  of  the  protopathic  kind,"  whereas 
the  epicritic  group  of  instincts  first  appeared 
with  the  development  of  gregarious  life.  He 
recognised  the  epicritic  form  of  mental  activity 
in  the  instincts  connected  with  the  social  life, 
especially  of  insects,  and  also  in  the  states 
of  hypnosis  and  sleep.  Finally,  he  doubted 
the  validity  of  the  usual  distinctions  between 
instinct  and  intelligence. 

Throughout  his  work  on  this  wide  subject 
Rivers  endeavoured  to  give  a  strict  definition 

173 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

to  words  which  had  hitherto  been  ambigu- 
ously or  loosely  used.  He  defined  unconscious 
experience  as  that  which  is  incapable  of  being 
brought  into  the  field  of  consciousness  save 
under  such  special  conditions  as  "  sleep, 
hypnosis,  the  method  of  free  association,  and 
certain  pathological  states."  He  defined  re- 
pression as  the  self-active,  "  witting  "  expul- 
sion of  experience  from  consciousness,  and 
suppression  as  the  "  unwitting  "  process  by 
which  experience  becomes  unconscious.  Thus 
suppression  may  occur  without  repression. 
When  one  refuses  to  consider  an  alternative 
path  of  action,  one  represses  it ;  when  a 
memory  becomes  "  of  itself  "  inaccessible  to 
recall,  it  is  suppressed.  When  such  a  sup- 
pressed experience  acquires  an  independent 
activity  which  carries  with  it  an  indepen- 
dent consciousness,  it  undergoes,  according  to 
Rivers's  usage  of  the  term,  dissociation.  Thus 
suppression  may  occur  without  dissociation. 
In  its  most  perfect  form,  according  to  Rivers, 
suppression  is  illustrated  by  the  instinct  of 
immobility  which  forms  one  of  the  reactions 
to  danger  ;  the  fugue  (as  also  somnambulism) 
is  "  a  typical  and  characteristic  instance  of 
dissociation." 

From  his  point  of  view  Rivers  was  naturally 
led,  wherever  possible,  to  interpret  abnormal 
mental  conditions  in  terms  of  regression  to 
more  primitive,  hitherto  suppressed  activities. 
He   held   that  the   hysterias   are   essentially 

174 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

"  substitution  neuroses,"  connected  with  and 
modified  by  the  gregarious  instincts,  and  are 
primarily  due  to  a  regression  to  the  primitive 
instinctive  danger  reaction  of  immobiHty, 
greatly  modified  by  suggestion.  So,  too, 
he  held  that  the  anxiety  neuroses,  which  are 
for  him  essentially  "  repression  neuroses," 
also  show  regression,  though  less  complete, 
in  the  strength  and  frequency  of  emotional 
reaction,  in  the  failure  during  states  of  phan- 
tasy to  appreciate  reality,  in  the  reversion  to 
the  nightmares,  and  especially  the  terrifying 
animal  dreams,  characteristic  of  childhood, 
in  the  occurrence  of  compulsory  acts,  in  the 
desire  for  solitude,  etc.  Indeed,  because  he 
believed  that  suppression  is  especially  apt  to 
occur,  and  to  be  relatively  or  absolutely 
perfect,  in  infancy,  Rivers  suggested  that 
the  independent  activity  of  suppressed  experi- 
ence and  the  process  of  dissociation,  as 
exemplified  in  fugues,  complexes,  etc.,  are 
themselves  examples  of  regression. 

He  criticised  Freud's  conception  of  the 
censorship,  substituting  in  place  of  that 
anthropomorphically  -  coloured  sociological 
parallel  the  physiological  and  non-teleological 
conception  of  regression.  He  supposed  the 
mimetic,  fantastic  and  symbolic  forms  in 
which  hysterias  and  dreams  manifest  them- 
selves to  be  natural  to  the  infantile  stages  of 
human  development,  individual  or  collective. 
For  him  they  were  examples  of  regression  to 

175 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

low-level  characters,  and  not,  as  Freud  sup- 
poses, ascribable  to  compromise  formations 
to  elude  the  vigilance  of  an  all-protective 
censor.  He  regarded  nightmares  and  war- 
dreams  as  examples  of  infantile  states.  He 
believed  the  absence  of  effect  in  many  normal 
dreams  to  be  natural  to  the  infantile  attitude, 
which  would  treat  the  situation  in  question 
with  indifference.  That  absence  of  effect 
also  arises  from  the  harmless  symbolic  solution 
of  the  conflict.  The  affect  of  dreams  is  only 
painful,  Rivers  supposed,  when  they  fail  to 
provide  a  solution  of  the  conflict,  and  is  not 
due,  as  Freud  holds,  to  the  activity  of  the 
censor.  In  the  social  behaviour  of  primi- 
tive communities  Rivers  was  able  to  find 
striking  analogies  to  the  characteristics  of 
dreams,  as  described  by  Freud. 

On  the  protopathic  side  he  ranged  the 
primitive  instincts  and  emotions,  and  the 
complexes,  together  with  the  activities  of  the 
optic  thalamus,  and  on  the  epicritic  side 
intelligence  and  the  sentiments,  together  with 
the  activities  of  the  cerebral  cortex.  We 
are  now  in  a  position  to  examine  Rivers 's 
treatment  of  the  gregarious  behaviour  of 
animal  and  human  life,  on  which  he  was 
still  engaged  at  the  time  of  his  death.  In 
the  gregarious  instinct  he  recognised  a  cog- 
nitive aspect  which  he  termed  "  intuition," 
an  affective  aspect  which  he  termed  "  sym- 
pathy," and  a  motor  aspect  which  he  termed 

176 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

"  mimesis."  He  used  "  mimesis  "  for  the 
process  of  imitation  so  far  as  it  was  unwitting. 
"  Sympathy  "  he  regarded  as  always  unwit- 
ting. "  Intuition  "  he  defined  as  the  process 
whereby  one  person  is  unwittingly  influenced 
by  another's  cognitive  activity.  But  I  feel 
sure  that  the  term  "  unwittingly  "  is  not  to 
be  considered  here  as  equivalent  to  "  tele- 
pathically."  All  that  Rivers  meant  was  that 
the  person  is  influenced  by  certain  stimuli 
without  appreciating  their  nature  and  mean- 
ing. He  preferred  to  employ  the  term  "  sug- 
gestion "  as  covering  all  the  processes  by 
which  one  mind  acts  on  or  is  acted  on  by 
another  unwittingly.  He  supposed  that  in 
the  course  of  mental  evolution  epicritic  char- 
acters displaced  the  early  protopathic  char- 
acters of  instinctive  behaviour  owing  to  the 
incidence  of  gregarious  life,  especially  among 
insects,  and  owing  to  the  appearance  and 
development  of  intelligence,  especially  in  man. 
The  suggestion  inherent  in  gregarious  be- 
haviour implies  some  graduation  of  mental 
and  bodily  activity — an  instinctive  and  un- 
witting discrimination  distinct  from  the  wit- 
ting discrimination  of  intelligence.  Sugges- 
tion, in  primitive  gregarious  behaviour,  as 
also  in  the  dissociated  state  of  hypnosis,  and 
in  its  allied  form,  ordinary  sleep,  is  prevented 
if  witting  processes  be  active  ;  it  "  is  a  process 
of  the  unconscious,"  said  Rivers.  Both 'within 
the    herd    and    during    hypnosis,    which    he 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

believed  to  be  fundamentally  of  a  collective 
nature,  sensibility  is  heightened,  so  that  the 
organism  may  be  able  to  react  to  minute  and 
almost  imperceptible  stimuli.  Had  he  lived, 
Rivers  would  have  carried  this  conception 
of  the  evolution  of  gregarious  life  still  further 
by  distinguishing  between  the  more  lowly 
leaderless  herd  and  the  herd  which  has  ac- 
quired a  definite  leader.  He  would  have 
traced  the  development  of  the  new  affect 
of  submission  and  of  the  new  behaviour  of 
obedience  to  the  leader,  and  he  would  doubt- 
less have  accredited  the  leader  with  the 
higher  affects  of  superiority  and  felt  prestige, 
with  the  higher  cognition  that  comes  of  intuitive 
foresight,  and  with  the  higher  behaviour  of 
intuitive  adaptation,  initiative  and  command. 
I  expect,  too,  that  he  would  have  sketched  the 
development  of  still  later  forms  of  social 
activity,  complicated  by  the  interaction  and 
combination  of  intellectual  and  instinctive 
processes — ^the  witting  deliberations  and  deci- 
sions on  the  part  of  the  leader,  and  the  intel- 
lectual understanding  of  the  reasons  for 
their  confidence  in  him  and  for  their  appro- 
priate behaviour  on  the  part  of  those  who 
are  led. 

But  it  would  be  idle  further  to  speculate 
on  the  ideas  of  which  we  have  been  robbed 
by  Rivers's  untimely  death.  Let  us  rather 
console  ourselves  with  the  vast  amount  of 
valuable  and  suggestive  material  which  he 

178 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

has  left  behind  and  with  the  stimulating 
memories  of  one  who,  despite  the  fact  that 
his  health  was  never  robust,  devoted  himself 
tmsparingly  to  scientific  work  and  to  the 
claims  of  any  deserving  human  beings  or 
of  any  deserving  humane  cause  that  were 
made  upon  him.  There  are,  no  doubt,  some 
who  believe  that  Rivers 's  earlier  experimental 
psychological  work — on  vision,  on  the  effects 
of  drugs,  and  on  cutaneous  sensibility — ^is 
likely  to  be  more  lasting  than  his  later  specula- 
tions on  the  nature  of  instinct,  the  unconscious, 
dreams,  and  the  psychoneuroses.  No  one  can 
doubt  the  scientific  permanence  of  his  in- 
vestigations in  the  laboratory  or  in  the  field ; 
they  are  a  standing  monument  to  us  of 
thoroughness  and  accuracy  combined  with 
criticism  and  genius.  But  even  those  who 
hesitate  to  suppose  that  at  some  definite 
period  in  mental  evolution  intelligence  sud- 
denly made  its  appearance  and  was  grafted 
on  to  instinct,  or  that  epicritic  sensibility 
was  suddenly  added  to  a  mental  life  which 
had  before  enjoyed  only  protopathic  sensi- 
bility— even  those  who  may  not  see  eye  to 
eye  with  Rivers  on  these  and  other  funda- 
mental views  on  which  much  of  his  later 
work  rested  will  be  foremost  in  recognising 
the  extraordinarily  stimulating,  suggestive, 
and  fruitful  character  of  all  that  he  poured 
forth  with  such  astounding  speed  and  pro- 
fusion during  the  closing  years  of  his  life. 

179 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  POLITICS 

And,  above  all,  we  mourn  a  teacher  who  was 
not  merely  a  man  of  science  devoted  to 
abstract  problems,  but  who  realised  the  value 
of  and  took  a  keen  delight  in  applying  the 
knowledge  gained  in  his  special  subject  to 
more  real  and  living  problems  of  a  more 
concrete,  practical,  everyday  character. 
Rivers's  careful  methods  of  investigating 
cutaneous  sensibility  and  the  rationale  of 
his  successful  treatment  of  the  psychoneuroses 
were  directly  due  to  his  psychological  train- 
ing. So,  too,  his  epoch-making  discoveries 
and  his  views  in  the  field  of  anthropology  on 
the  spread  and  conflict  of  cultures  were 
largely  due  to  the  application  of  that  training. 
Shortly  before  his  death  he  was  developing, 
as  a  committee  member  of  the  Industrial 
Fatigue  Research  Board,  an  intense  interest 
in  that  youngest  application  of  psychology, 
viz.  to  the  improvement  of  human  conditions 
in  industrial  and  commercial  work  by  the 
methods  of  experimental  psychology  applied 
to  fatigue  study,  motion  study,  and  vocational 
selection. 

Unhappily,  men  of  such  wide  sympathies 
and  understanding  as  Rivers,  combined  with  a 
devotion  to  scientific  work,  are  rare.  He 
himself  recognised  that  "  specialisation  has 
...  in  recent  years  reached  such  a  pitch 
that  it  has  become  a  serious  evil.  There 
is  even  a  tendency,"  he  rightly  said,  "  to 
regard  with  suspicion  one  who  betrays  the 

i8o 


INFLUENCE  OF  W.   H.   R.   RIVERS 

possession  of  knowledge  or  attainments  out- 
side a  narrow  circle  of  interests  "  {Brit.  Jour, 
of  Psychol.,  vol.  X.  page  184).  Let  his  life, 
his  wisdom,  his  wide  interests,  sympathies 
and  attainments,  and  the  generosity  and 
honesty  of  his  character,  be  an  example  to 
us  in  our  common  object — the  Advancement 
of  Science. 


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